Power, authority, and becoming our own teacher.
As much as we long to be empowered women, we often don’t realize our power is at our fingertips and we are the ones who are not claiming it.
How much power do you give away by a longing to be understood? By longing to be liked? How much power do you give away through not holding your boundaries? To your lack of time management? By doing too much? How much power do you give away through empathy, guilt, and feelings of obligation?
How much of your power do you give away to the outside world? To teachers, Gurus, authority figures, tarot cards, and spiritual healers, or familiar structures of stability? Where have you given your sovereignty away for a false sense of security?
What is your relationship with authority? Do you seek an authority to sit beneath so you can be guided, told where to go, what to do, and what to believe because it takes the pressure off? Do you rely on someone else to tell you what energy is moving through the world, through you, and what your path is?
How much of your power do you give away through feelings of insecurities, and self-doubt? In your intimate relationships, in your work life, in your social circle, and your acceptance of self?
What comfort do these stories provide us? Even if you think they don’t, they at least did, and until we see the comfort they carry, we will never outgrow them.
“It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us…”
Marianne Williamson
I use to think claiming our power meant claiming our power to wield our life. It does and it doesn’t. We can wield how we meet it, but claiming our power is an act of great surrender and divine trust because denying our essence doesn’t change it, it only causes suffering, and life can’t be bridled. Embracing our light means letting go. Claiming our power is vowing our faith and loyalty to honor our essence and to follow our soul strings. It’s a vow to our self to never deny our true state of being.
Claiming our power is trusting that we are worthy, that we are on purpose, and that we are right where we are supposed to be. It’s trusting that we are a gift. That we are great medicine. And that we are radiant. This is liberation, its liberation of our innocence to simply be, claiming our pure divine design.
Our power is the inner freedom of letting our inhibitions go and letting our shame of self go. It’s releasing our inhibitions around love, self-expression, our desires, and our wisdom. It’s shedding shame and claiming ourselves as our greatest teacher and guide. It’s choosing a love affair with ourselves over earning the love of another.
Why do we fear this?
It’s incredibly vulnerable and there is a lot at risk to lose. When we’ve woven a world of false security all around us by embodying the chameleon to fit in, and we’ve stayed small to feel safe, we risk everything we know crumbling to dust. Even though freedom and more joy are on the other side, letting go can be terrifying. Rightfully so.
When we stop following the advice of another, the responsibility, and consequences are ours. We are no longer passively living, we are taking the reigns. It may feel less safe to be the driver not knowing where you are going, what’s coming, or if you will make it because it’s easier to grant our power to another. It’s easier to say it’s up to God/Goddess or fate. It’s easier to sit in the passenger seat. But it’s a false sense of security and it denies us our full potential. When we think others know what is best for us, the consequence doesn’t fall on us.
There is a time in all of our lives where we realize our parents don’t know everything and in some ways, they fall off the pedestal we had unconsciously granted them. For some, this happens very young in life, and some later. But at some point, we all realize they don’t know everything.
At some point, we must realize that nobody really knows anything, and life is about choice.
There are no guarantees and everything has a polarity. There are an infinite amount of explanations for any given situation that can all be true and contradicting. There are no right and wrong turns in the crosswords we inevitably meet, just choices. Ultimately the goal is to master navigating the infinite choices in a way that creates the least amount of suffering for ourselves. It’s learning to choose and not look back.
Being frozen, and unable to move forward is the wounding of trusting the divine and ourselves. It’s not having faith in our divine design. It’s perfectionism, fear, and ego. And it’s missing the beauty of life. It's missing the adventure. It’s trying to control everything and it’s our fear to let go. What are we really afraid of?
When we can realize the fear isn’t rational our grip will loosen.
Some could say this would lead to hedonism and chaos but I believe there is an aspect of a moral compass so to speak within us all that knows we are one thread of the grand web of life. I believe deep down we feel the ripple of our actions and we have the ability to decipher the dance between us and all.
When we create chaos all around us for a superficial desire that may seem like something we long for, the chaos around us does create suffering for ourselves. And this is something we all have to figure out in our time and in our own way.
It doesn’t feel good to treat others without respect. There is a difference between carelessly hurting someone, and embodying the fierce mother out of love, knowing your boundaries will grant ourselves, and potentially the other the opportunity to find their power and sovereignty too.
When we claim our power and claim our truth, it means the people we have accommodated to may “not like” us anymore. When really, most likely there has always been a lack of resonance and we must face our responsibility for projecting a false harmony to fit in.
When we claim our truth, those around us may not receive what we have to say. They may fall out of love with us. We may shatter the pedestal they have us on. And we may awaken to the false pedestals we have placed others on, losing our sense of security by having them there. They may no longer adore us, long for us, admire us or want us in their lives. It runs the risk of rejection and backlash.
When we claim our power and authority, it means we are going to be wrong at times, and we are going to fail at times. It’s humbling and vulnerable, and it’s a courageous, necessary part of growing pains and the growing process.
When we don’t claim our truth there is an undertone of enabling that ripples out all around us, and when we speak truth, we rip that safety cushion of comfort that we’ve been hanging on to ourselves, and offering to all of those around us. There’s a backlash that often occurs and this is why it takes so much courage. This is the medicine of the fierce mother who teaches us to stand in the darkness that true compassion illuminates, and she gives us the strength to stand in the power of our truth.
Another part of claiming our truth is realizing that we live in a world that had taught us that it is greedy and selfish to put ourselves first and to have a strong drive to pursue our desires. If we “want” it’s projected as lustful and greedy. If we want abundance, pleasure, and big dreams it’s been shamed. We have been taught to feel guilty because there are so many with less than us. We have all experienced the backlash or projected, engrained guilt for choosing ourselves first in one way or another. This is how we bring our medicine to the world though.
Women have been taught to think being a martyr, and self-deprivation is honorable, but until our cup is full we have nothing to give, and we won’t realize how much we have to give until we choose ourselves first and feel the overflow ignite first hand.
Our empowerment is an awakening to the sovereignty at our fingertips that’s always been there, waiting for us to grasp it.
Our power is realizing that divine feminine sovereignty is in service of self and all. It’s selfish and selfless all at the same time. It’s a shedding of the holographic chains of insecurity, self-doubt, stories, and fears that have followed us throughout our lifetimes, unconsciously keeping us small, denying our boundaries, longings, and wisdom that helps us sink into our truth and claim this life that is ours.
It is this awakening and this shedding that teaches us the purity of power.
With love,
Abby
