Personal Power with Responsibility
Personal power is connected to responsibility. I am going to look at power as our ability to respond to what is needed in every moment. Response ability. In the flow of life I engage and respond to what is unfolding. In this current I hold the rudder though, which is the direction I want to go towards. I connect to my centre within, as my inner source knows the direction and lights my fire whenever action is needed.
When my father fell ill in 2016 my fire moved me. I suddenly decided to move back to Italy. I left my job and sold my home and for more than two years I responded to what was needed there. My life force and other resources came to me to do the work that was necessary. In the same way my fire moved me to return to the UK in late 2018, when I had to come back to myself and my purpose.
Did I decide all of this? Yes, in a sense I did, but it is also true that I didn’t resist to what was happening in the moment and responded to it with total involvement. I believe we do set a direction in our lives, we do need to know what we want, and our will holds the wheel towards our destination. In the process however the main goal is to maintain a state of high vibration, in which we flow and engage with life harmoniously. Response-ability is based on self-esteem, trusting we can handle anything in life, without doubt, fear or stress, being true to our unique individual nature.
In fact, the two years in Italy were not easy and it was not easy to patch my life back together in UK. I went through self-doubt, feeling worthless and stressing quite a bit in the process. My reflection today is about this: how can we trust ourselves and move forward in life, without anxiety or self-doubt, owning the power in every moment to respond to life in a state of joy, vitality and creativity?
From an energy perspective power is neutral, it flows in our body along the spine and the central channel of the body, following an upward and downward current. We breathe the energy up the body from the root chakra, the kundalini vital earthy frequency. We breathe the energy down the body from our crown, the light frequency of our Soul. Earth energy and Soul energy ignite our response-ability, that fire which leads to action. Instinct, Inspiration and Action need to be aligned. Subconscious, Super conscious and Conscious Mind need to be aligned. I need to feel deep down in my belly that I can do it. I need to trust my Soul divine guidance. I need to take conscious action.
Once the Soul has shown the way and the conscious mind is on the case, do we really believe we can do it? Does our subconscious really believe we are powerful? An example from my own life is the decision of taking my practice as a healer to a new level, through writing and broadcasting. My Soul wants to share energy healing tools for people to learn how to manage their physical and emotional well-being. My conscious mind is focussed and disciplined on implementing practical projects, such as finishing my book and setting up an online platform. However, my subconscious recently showed me it didn’t agree with this at all! One night I woke up to this dream: I was going to a job interview for a healer position. First of all, I found myself facing all sort of small hitches to get to the appointment. Secondly and above all, the two people in the team to whom I gave a taster healing session, said they didn’t receive any benefit from it! The dream was a clear message that my subconscious needed some reprogramming! I had to remove the charge of some deep conditioning against seeing myself successful at my project.
We all have a fire inside that moves our actions, a combination of instinctual earth energy and intuitive soul intelligence. The point is: are we moved by our true fire or by a reactive way of behaving, alias our subconscious negative programming?
Instead of being relaxed in our Power we often swing between opposite states of no-power or power-over, no control or too much control, no action or too much action. Either we feel powerless or we feel superior than everybody else. Either we are stuck or we push things all the time. Whether a victim or a dominator, there is a problem with personal power. Either we have lost our own authority, or we believe we need to impose ours on everybody else. Both situations cause rejection, stress and other forms of suffering and are not conducive to manifesting our purpose and expressing our true Self. We get lost in reactive behaviours rather than just responding to what is needed, in a joyful and creative way.
A way to heal our relationship to power as our response-ability, is to examine the most relevant authority figures in our life, how did they behave with us and how we reacted.
Whilst in a waiting room I saw a mother telling off her 2-3 years old daughter. The girl was standing on a sofa. The mother told her, with a very harsh tone of command, to come down and sit properly. The mother counted 3, 2 and then threatened the girl: Don’t let me count down to 1….The girl gave in and sat properly, then asked: Mummy can I have a cuddle?, which the mother refused. This way of exercising authority was dominant, and the reaction of the girl was to obey and then ask for love and reassurance.
Parents are our first bosses. We want to please them as we need their love. Later authority figures often reflect those models. When the rules coming from the environment are too rigid or too weak children do not train efficiently their ability to respond, as they do not feel safe to explore their power. They behave to please or rebel or for other reactive reasons, instead of listening to their inner guidance. Furthermore they develop toxic beliefs such as: I can’t do it, I have no value, I am on my own, I need to fight and struggle, I need to be in control. An example from my own life comes from my early relationship with my mother, a wonderful fiery woman, who was learning to manage her controlling attitude. As an over managed child I felt tied and paralyzed and developed the belief that I can’t do it on my own. The consequent pattern of behaviour was to try and fulfill other people’s expectations or to live up to external high standards, all of which has only led me to feeling never good enough and failing all the time.
Another way to heal our relationship to Power and align ourselves to Source within is to look at attachments in our life. Attachments can be to people or roles we are over identified with. Unworthiness and feeling separated from Source are root causes of powerlessness. To feel worthy and loved we try to fix ourselves, we set up strategies to prove we are good enough, we hold on to identities that make us feel we have value. Our need to be loved and to be deserving of love creates co-dependent relationships and negative attachments. When we create intimate or social relations because we need love and validation, other people’s emotions and thoughts get entangled in our energy field and we do not feel ourselves clearly anymore, therefore losing power and confidence. In the same way rigid roles and identities can be like a cage to our free expression.
Around the fire of the shamanic camps the leader would scream: Who is your authority? And the group would scream back: I am my own authority! No matter how many ‘supposed failures’ in my life, I have always wanted to be myself. The truth is that we only fail if we give up our unique individual self, with its strengths and weaknesses. What if all my perceived failures were perfect steps to my becoming, to my learning and growing? No matter how much resistance I meet inside I keep choosing to trust myself and take action. All obstacles are a training for me to learn response-ability and self-love. Only by being truly ourselves can we join in communities, cooperating harmoniously. When we feel free to be ourselves, we naturally respect others and recognise their unique value. We then become powerful and loving at the same time.
There is one last theme I would like to explore, which has always been at the core of my spiritual seeking. This is about the relationship between Personal power and God power. If power is universal intelligence flowing through me, unhindered by external conditioning, how much do I surrender to it and how much do I will it into being and to an extent control it?
I watched recently a biographical movie about spiritualism in France in the second half of the 1800s. Karnac, the protagonist, was researching the widespread activity of mediumship at the time. A new era was dawning that showed a spirit world exists beyond our material reality, with conscious disincarnate beings having a dialogue with the living. The way this happened was through mediums, young girls and women in the movie, who lost conscience and allowed the spirits to talk through automatic writing. The mediums had no awareness of the flow of consciousness running through them.
I believe that as part of a general process of evolution or ascension humans are now learning to channel the life force with awareness, becoming co-creators in the dance of life. And here lies our need to learn the balance between surrender and personal responsibility. I surrender 100%, I take 100% responsibility. Although it looks contradictory and illogical, it solves my need for spiritual oneness and individual expression. I choose to be empty, as out of the way of my ego reactive patterns, but I also choose involvement in life, in active conversation with the intelligent field I belong to. I choose to initiate and then I surrender to the becoming. I am both emptiness and creative form. In Indian mythology Shi-va (literally No-thing) is the emptiness out of which Rudra is born, the primordial universal being. When Shakti energy emerging from his belly awakens him, Rudra roars all of creation out of its own body. Creator and creatures are One. I am that Power and I am also the Will to cause my destiny into being.
Find below the outline of a meditation to overcome negative ego patterns and emotional attachments blocking your Power. You can either be in meditation or work with writing in a stream of consciousness mode.
MEDITATION: Transforming beliefs about Authority
Intention is to track which story about power-authority in your personal life is causing a reactive pattern of behavior and blocking your power.
1. Pick up a time in the past where you were with an important authority figure.
How old are you? Who is the authority figure with you? It can be mother or father, a teacher, a work colleague or else.
2. Observe this relationship, gather as much information as possible.
Behaviour. Look at behaviors, yours and theirs. How is this person behaving with you and how you are reacting? Identify one dominant behavior.
Feelings. Notice your feelings. How do you feel when they behave like this with you? Identify one core feeling.
Thoughts. Observe now which thought is connected to the core feeling you identified. Thoughts about your personal power, your abilities or self-worth.
3. Ask for help to your Higher Self, or to other Guide or Light-being working at the same vibration of your Higher Self.
Ask them to show you a new behaviour, a new empowered wayof being. Receive images, words, feelings around a new story of personal power.
Embody their advice, take the new action, visualize and feel yourself in this new powerful story.
Notice which new thought arises when you follow their advice. Notice what happens to your feelings when you embody this new thought. Create an affirmation to remember.
4. Ask for healing to your Higher Self or other Guide
Go to a place of healing with your Higher Self/Guide in nature, in a temple or other place of light.
Do a transformation using fire. Imagine a fire in front of you. Let go of all the energy of pain and suffering out of your body into the fire. The fire is burning to ashes any old energy pattern. Throw everything in the fire, all the thoughts and emotions around this story. Cleanse your body, empty yourself.
Ask now that any energy, thought or emotion that doesn’t belong to you be also released out of your body. Release any energy, chord or attachment belonging to other people and blocking your energy and power. Release everything in the fire.
5. Fill yourself with Soul energy and Power
Merge with your Soul energy, feel the light streaming down into your crown and into your body
Centre in the heart, be in your own sacred space.
Repeat the new affirmation you have chosen about your Power.
Seal and protect your space. Ask for help to a Light being, if you need to.
Affirm you have sovereignty: I am my own authority and I decide what to let in my space.
