Freeing Our Personal Power

Freeing Our Personal Power

The path of the warrior is an approach to life that aims to maximize our potential and deepen our relationship with the Universe. Warriorship focuses on inner transformation and views the world through the lens of energy and power. A warrior is someone who seeks freedom through choice, takes radical responsibility for their actions, and is a master of their intent. There is much to be gained by walking this path and increasing and freeing our personal power, even for the most novice warrior. Understanding that the path is not a place you reach, but rather a process of continued self-mastery. As Robert Spencer describes it in The Craft of the Warrior, “….it provides a strategic blueprint for self-organization.”

What is a Warrior?

In her book, Warrior Goddess Training, HeatherAsh Amara explains warriors in this way, “Warrior energy is a combination of focus, dedication, purpose, and determination. Consciously bringing these things together gives us power.” This quest for power is really about our pursuit of growth and personal evolution. It is about wanting to dive deep into the mystery and magnificence of the Universe and living with the knowledge that we are part of that magnificence. A warrior is humbled by this truth and lives accordingly.

Awakening the Warrior Activation

What is Personal Power?

We are all born with a certain amount of personal power. Some describe it as a form of life force energy that allows for our existence. However, a warrior is interested in more than just existing. To do this, she must deepen her relationship with the Unknown. Our personal power expands as our knowledge of one’s self, and the Universe deepens. The more personal power we have, the more able we are to traverse the unknown realms. It is the fuel of the warrior, and through our awareness and heightened perception, we engage in an energetic relationship with everything around us. Personal power allows us to transcend, transmute and transform ourselves in powerful ways. 

Our use and acquisition of this power in efficient and effective ways is what the Toltecs call impeccability. As a spiritual guide, don Juan Matus said, “Impeccability is nothing else but the proper use of energy.” Some call this our ability to do or take action in the world in alignment with our intent. So, as we take conscious effort and use our energy efficiently and effectively, we build our personal power.

The Path With Heart

Carlos Castaneda writes, “It is the consistent choice of the path with heart which makes a warrior different from the average man.” The path with heart looks different for everyone, but it aligns with your essence, enjoyment, and development. It is a path that strengthens you, challenges you, and is chosen with purpose and meaning at its core. A warrior knows that death is their eternal companion, and no matter what path we choose, they all lead to the same place. Because the warrior faces the inevitability of death, they decide to live life in its fullest expression. If a path no longer fits or brings joy, the warrior is free to choose differently. 

Many of the choices a warrior makes along their path may go unnoticed by the uninitiated. But a warrior seeks the mystery and moves between the known and unknown worlds. As soon as certainty sets in, the warrior is no longer walking the path with heart. A warrior views the Universe as an unfathomable mystery that can never be known yet is always seeking to unravel her mysteries. This keeps a warrior flexible and engaged with life from a place of joy and curiosity rather than a rigid certainty. 

This does not mean the path is without struggle. Struggle is an inherent part of expansion and development. In Journey to Ixtlan, many things need to be overcome on a warrior’s path. don Juan Matus talks about erasing personal history, disrupting routines, losing self-importance, and dropping habits. All of these things bind our power and keep us within the confines of the ordinary world. 

Losing Personal Power

There are many ways in which we lose or bind our power. Habits are considered a power sink because they bind our power rather than drain it. In The Craft of the Warrior, Robert Spencer writes, “A power sink is much like a pond or a lake in the desert with no outlet to the sea. Power collects there, but being unable to flow, it just evaporates.” So, one of the best ways to free up personal power is to give something up. Habits are performed without conscious thought, so we might think that since they require little thought that they use little power. But, anyone who has released a habit knows how much energy is involved in supporting it. Remember that habits aren’t just actions; we can have emotional and mental habits as well. 

For example, pretend you are giving up your morning danish. You may have omitted the action of eating the danish, but you spent most of the day thinking about how much you missed it. Those repetitive thoughts are also habits. It is not just about giving something up but doing so with impeccability or employing the proper use of your energy. Spending a good portion of the day lamenting the danish is not an efficient use. 

Awakening the Warrior Activation

Power Leaks

Power leaks are another way to lose personal power. In the Warrior literature, one of the most significant ways we lose power is through identification. Or, to put it another way, the way we define ourselves by our roles, history, and various group identities is often defined by someone external to the self. Spencer writes, “First, identification produces a static quality in which permanence is both assumed and desired. Thus we can not adapt easily to the changing flux that life presents, and a great deal of power are used trying to minimize any changes that might threaten the stability of our identification or the way in which we define ourselves.”

Negative emotions are also described as a power leak. This doesn’t mean that she suppresses or represses healthy emotion, but a warrior would not act on it. In the literature, most authors view negative emotions stemming from over-identification and habitual patterns. Once someone can recognize the emotion without the mental overlay/construct, the emotion is just seen as energy moving through the body. Appropriate expressions of emotion, that is to say, emotions in proportion to the event, are using one’s energy impeccably. Dan Millman writes, “You don’t have to bring a thought or corresponding tension to life; you don’t have to dramatize it….as emotional obstructions are left undramatized, they’ll grow weaker until finally, they become obsolete.” 

Hunting Power

In addition to plugging leaks and unbinding power, there are things a warrior can do to acquire power. This power can be found in playing in the mystery and unknown realms. Engaging in activities that expand our relationship to the Universe. Crossing this threshold requires one to accept uncertainty and be able to sit with fear or confusion without trying to impose order. It also requires a heightened sense of perception that opens up to experiences rather than categorizing them. This means that a warrior leans more on their internal reference points than looking for external ones to explain their experience. 

It is not easy to put into words what it means to cross the threshold into the unknown. don Juan, called this non-ordinary reality the nagual. Or David Bohms’ description of the Implicate Order. A living awareness consisting of limitless potentialities, an unmanifest consciousness where all things are possible. For some, it is the use of rituals and techniques that alter states of consciousness. It could be engaging in active dreaming. Or it can be playing in the unknown even in the ordinary world by heightening our perceptions and awareness to notice the subtle shifts of energy, the negative space, or the webs of illusion that feed the consensus-based reality. 

These techniques that bring a warrior across the threshold into the unknown require being in the now moment. A warrior opens up to the world, listening with her inner ears and seeing with her inner sight. It is about feeling the world with your whole being and acting as both a receiver and transmitter of energy and power. 

Awakening the Warrior Activation

Freedom & Discipline

It might seem counterintuitive in a perspective that values fluidity that discipline would be so highly valued. But in Warriorship, freedom is a product of discipline. Spencer describes, “To take the path with heart, then we must find a way of loosening our bonds with what has limited us. In doing so, we challenge our self-concepts, refocus our awareness, cut tethers to our beliefs, rechannel our emotions, open our senses to new perceptions, and find new filters through which to process information.” None of this happens by chance. It requires a conscious, concerted effort to move through these self-limiting behaviors to reach a place of freedom. It is the perfect alignment of intention and action. 

But the warrior understands that discipline must be in harmony with our ability to let go. After the preparations are made, skills learned and mastered; the warrior must be prepared to take action with the full force of her being. A warrior has control until they don’t, and then we must be able to release with abandon and detach from the outcome. A warrior’s freedom is found in this delicate dance of discipline and release. 

Detachment

Remaining detached is another critical attribute of the warrior’s path and to maintaining personal power. A warrior does not look through the lens of success and failure. She makes choices from the perspective of impeccability and not outcome. The warrior’s fluid nature allows her to take quick action and drop something if it is no longer aligned with her intent. When a person is attached, it creates a web of energy, linking our thoughts and emotions through story. Therefore investing and binding our personal power, making it less available and fluid. It is the intent, discipline, and detachment that allows for fluidity.

A warrior’s path is not always easy. And it will not be perfect. But, by following this path, we can transcend ordinary human awareness into a place of unlimited perception. As more of the unknowns become known and we understand there are many separate realities, we can manifest our full potential. A warrior can take leaps without needing explanation and is okay living outside the boundaries of what is considered normal. The real question is, how alive do you want to be? As don Juan Matus said, “We choose to be warriors or to be ordinary men. A second choice does not exist.”

Chakras: A Framework for Personal Evolution

Chakras: A Framework for Personal Evolution

So much of my understanding of the chakras came from the work of Caroline Myss. I would highly recommend reading The Anatomy of the Spirit if you have an interest in this topic. To dive even further, I would also recommend her audiobook, Energy Anatomy. Both are excellent resources, and much of this information is sourced from those materials.

Working with the chakras can be a valuable tool for your personal evolution. Chakras are an integral part of our energy body anatomy. These vortexes of light support our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. They are also associated with psychosocial characteristics. Allowing us to explore the way we perceive the world. When we understand which chakras are out of alignment, we gain insight into the stories and relationships that keep us stuck.

What are Chakras?

Chakras are spinning wheels of light. They receive universal life force energy from our environment, move it along our Nadis and energize the endocrine organs, nervous system, and blood. These energy centers both generate and inform the overall energy matrix that makes up our energy body. We measure the health or state of the chakras by the size, shape, and direction of its spin and the openness of the center. The spin of the chakras working together creates an electromagnetic field that produces the aura around the body.

Chakras & Our Evolution

Chakras are like blueprints of consciousness that record and document all of our life events. The first three chakras represent our relationship with the outer world. The upper three chakras represent our relationship to our inner world.  The lower chakras match our developmental stages, but as we move into the upper chakras, they are more tied to our experiences.

By understanding which chakras are out of harmony and looking at the associated psychosocial characteristics, we gain insight into our challenges—learning about the patterns and constructs that do not serve our highest potential.

The Root Chakra – Tribal Power
Sacred Truth – All is One

The root chakra is all about our sense of belonging. It includes our sense of safety, security, and survival instincts. The root is also the foundation for our physical health and well-being. This chakra is associated with our early childhood. Much of our sense of identity, worldview, and values were formed from our familial relationships and early group identities.  It takes many years for a child to understand that they are separate from their families. That is why the sacred truth of this chakra is All is One.

This chakra corresponds with the etheric field. This field extends just slightly beyond the body and with a relaxed focus can sometimes be seen as gray or blue.

(Try Expansion – All is One Guided Meditation)

The Sacral Chakra – Power of Relationship
Sacred Truth – Honor One Another

The sacral chakra is all about our relationships with other people outside of our family. This area is our center of emotion, sex, pleasure, sensuality, and intimacy. Our relationship to money and creativity is also connected here. It is in this chakra that we start to introduce duality. We learn about ourselves through relationships. If we associate this with human growth and development, this would be when a child begins school and starts to understand themselves relative to someone else.

This chakra corresponds with the emotional field. It shows up as different colors depending on what a person is feeling.

The Solar Plexus Chakra – Personal Power
Sacred Truth – Honor One’s Self

This chakra is about our sense of self-worth and self-esteem. It is about getting to know who we are outside of group dynamics and relationships. Because of this, we deal with fear, anxiety, and our sense of self confidence. It is also associated with the further development of the self, ego, and identity. This time would be represented by puberty when adolescents try to find their way in the world and push back against constraints, norms and expectations.

This chakra corresponds with the mental field. It is also where our gut instinct originates. As we learn to value and trust who we are, this intuition source becomes very powerful.

The Heart Chakra – Emotional Power
Sacred Truth – Love is Divine Power

This chakra is the connector of the lower and upper chakras, the physical and spiritual realms. The bottom three chakras relate to our external world. What we see looking outward. As we shift into the heart and move into the upper three chakras, it is what we experience looking inwards – our inner sight. The heart is our seat of love, acceptance, compassion, and forgiveness. This chakra is about our internal feelings and our emotional response to our thoughts.

Also, the amount of attention we give to our emotional needs determines our emotional maturity. Many of the challenges that arrive in this center are a result of sacral chakra interactions. If we were not shown love as children or in our early relationships, our emotional development and maturity might be stunted as adults.

This chakra corresponds with the astral body. Usually rainbow-colored, this part of the field acts as a bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds.

The Throat Chakra – Power of Will
Sacred Truth – Surrender Personal Will to Divine Will

This chakra is the seat of self-expression, communication, and will. Because it is located between the heart and the mind, it connects our mental/emotional bodies around our power of choice. While often thought of as the seat of self-expression, it is about more than just being able to communicate. It is about the movement of personal will into divine will. So, not just speaking up on behalf of oneself, but speaking from a place that is informed by the heart and the mind. A place that is a blend of the Spirit and the self. It is also the movement from linear time into energetic time. As we begin to see the world through an energetic lens, aka multidimensionally, all things become possible.

This chakra corresponds with the etheric template. A bluish gridwork that supports the physical body. It is the divine blueprint of the physical body.

The Brow Chakra – Power of the Mind
Sacred Truth – Seek Only the Truth

This chakra is about the development of the mind, understanding truth from illusion. Our seat of inner guidance, wisdom, and imagination. It helps us to differentiate between thoughts motivated by fear and those that come from our inner knowing. We also learn to detach from outcomes and expectations i.e.developing our impersonal mind. Meditation and mindfulness practice can be beneficial for working with this chakra. It links our mental and emotional bodies because it contains our thoughts, memories, personal experiences, and our feelings about them.

This chakra corresponds with the celestial body. This can sometimes be seen as shards of rainbow light radiating from the center core of a person.

The Crown Chakra – Divine Power
Sacred Truth – Live in the Present Moment

This chakra is the center of bliss and transcendental consciousness. Here we move into higher consciousness through beingness. It is where inspired thought and mystical experiences originate. Our spiritual self seeks to integrate spirituality into all aspects of our lives. It is in this chakra that we develop and maintain our relationship with the Divine.

This chakra corresponds with the etheric body, a golden shell around the auric field’s outer edges. It is the boundary between the universal energy field and the individual field.

There are many models and frameworks to explore our lives. Many that help us to understand who we are and why we make the choices we make. Working with the chakras is one of the best ways to bring balance and harmony to our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects, but they also give us insight into the places we are stuck. By understanding the chakras and applying their unique qualities and lessons to our lives, we receive essential and actionable wisdom. They also ask us to see from a higher perspective, blending the Spirit and the self.

Which chakra has insight for you today? Take our Chakra quiz.

Want to know more? Consider working one on one with an Energy Practitioner.

Want to bring balance and harmony to your chakras? Try our Chakra Balancing Guided Meditation. 

 

 

Forgiveness: Seeing a Higher Perspective

Forgiveness: Seeing a Higher Perspective

“Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?” 

 ~ Marcus Aurelius

What is Forgiveness?

One of the best descriptions that I read is that forgiveness is when you can pull your energy out of the situation. What does that mean exactly? It means that you are willing to drop the story you’ve created that allows you to remain justified in your pain. 

We often talk about forgiveness like it is an act done for the other person, but forgiveness is really about our desire to move forward. And it isn’t until we choose to let go of the story that legitimizes our pain that we are able to move on. That is why Caroline Myss describes forgiveness as a self-initiated act of transformation. Because it requires a deliberate and conscious choice to calm our ego’s incessant talk that continually informs us on why we are entitled to our hurt and anger.

How Do We Forgive?

According to Positive Psychology, forgiveness is a process that asks us to cultivate acceptance, see things from multiple perspectives, and re-write the story from those higher perspectives. The first step is accepting what is. Eckart Tolle wrote, “It seems that most people need to experience a great deal of suffering before they will relinquish resistance and accept — before they will forgive. As soon as they do, one of the greatest miracles happens….the transmutation of suffering into inner peace.”

(Here’s another animal guide meditation you might enjoy)

This is not about spiritual by-passing and suppressing our pain or hurt. It may take some time until we are ready to move forward. However, once we decide that we no longer want to identify with that story, we begin the path toward peace. 

A Soul-Level Perspective

Taking a bird’s eye view of the situation is one way to shift into acceptance. Can you witness the divinity in yourself and the other person? Do you trust in divine timing? As Myss writes, “From a cosmic perspective, your life is far more complex than you can measure by the influence of one or two relationships. There is a higher law that rules the spirit, a mystical law…”

Humans are messy and complicated. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you condone another’s behavior or will forget that they have wronged you in some way. It just means that you aren’t willing to let it bind your energy any further. Are you ready to invite peace into your life? To be fully present in the here and now?

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