Many of us have been taught that power comes from how much influence you have on the world. We think in terms of power over outer forces. This view of power is not only harmful, it is incredibly limited.
Last week, I was thinking about Oaxaca City and how beautiful it is. I remembered learning from one of the locals that all buildings in Oaxaca are no more than two stories high. When I asked why, they said it is because of the earthquakes there — shorter buildings create a safer environment for the people.
Aside from being safer, you end up living in a city of 715,000 people and can still easily look up and see the great, blue sky. When stepping out of my favorite cafe in the morning, I would pause on sidewalk and take in the views of the mountains around me. Feeling the vastness of the earth and imbibing the beauty of the place.
What does this have to do with becoming more powerful?
In my Reiki classes I teach people how to become more powerful manifestors by creating affirmations and intentions, instead of setting expectations. Affirmations work by using your intuitive wisdom, putting words to the emotions that you feel in your body when thinking about something you would like to have come to fruition. They also leave space for the universe to work its magic. Meaning we don’t put limitations on when or how this manifestation comes about. We are limited when we observe the world through our small-self lens. Our current conditioning only allows for us to view time linearly, meaning we can only imagine for ourselves what we have experienced before.
This is why an expectation is limiting. It tells the universe what is possible and creates a timeline for the manifestation to take place. When something doesn’t manifest on our timeline we lose faith and become frustrated. Alternatively, when we do receive our manifestation in the time we asked it often lacks what we really needed to grow and we end up dissatisfied and stuck in a loop pattern.
What I see in the United States is incredible amounts of expectation. Beings who think they know better than the earth, than the cosmos. We build super-tall skyscrapers, a lifeless gray color that encroaches on the beautiful sky and creates a feeling of being trapped within the places we live. People pack in on top of each other, using transportation that makes us feel rushed and stressed while also polluting our earth.
Human beings have forgotten that we do not stop at the boundary of our skin, and this is where the magic really starts to happen.
Power over is an illusion. There is only power with. However, it is the beliefs that we hold in our mind that create our reality. To step into your full power you must remember that you are everything.
You are the universe. You are the earth. You are your spirit guides. You are everything that you see. When you start to step into your power, you must relinquish some “control” and trust the other parts of yourself to do the work.
What does this mean? It’s like imagining that you are only your lungs. If you are only your lungs then in our current logic you must be checking in with the heart constantly to make sure it is doing its job. You must dominate the heart, tell the heart what to do. Even though you are lungs and you know exactly what lungs supposed to do, you overstep your bounds and exhaust yourself. There is a sesnse of lack because it was never your job to know what the heart needs to do, just support it by doing what you are meant to do.
In reality, we know that the heart is doing just fine. Yes, it is influenced by the choices that we make, and that is true of everything, but we are not in control of the heart nor do we have to be. Thank goddess for that. If we were responsible for taking care of everything, it would require a lot of time and a lot of energy. We wouldn’t have enough to go around.
If you want to create a life that is better than anything you can imagine, you must allow the other parts of you — the universe, the earth, your guides — to do the work of co-creating this reality.
At the beginning of my journey I was under the same spell that many of us are brought under. It felt like I either needed to strong-arm the universe/world into doing what I wanted, or I had to be a good girl so I could be gifted the wish that I wanted. Neither is true.
What I have come to find in my continuous years of study and practice, is that it is the illusion that I am the small-self which prohibits me from receiving all that I desire and more. When I tune into the energies within me, I can feel what I would like to grow into next. As I release my attachment to how the outcome looks, the universe gifts me with what I want but even better than I could imagine.
When we combine forces with the earth and take into consideration what she is trying to tell us, we actually end up building systems and structures that are more beautiful and more nourishing to our lives. When we say our prayers and wait patiently for spirit to answer, the result is a reality that is beyond anything we could have imagined — and for the better.
This is why meditation is so powerful. It deconstructs the false barriers in the mind and releases us from the structures that were handed down to us. We step into a fuller version of reality where more options become available to us. The guides are constantly telling me that when we arrive fully in the present moment, every timeline becomes available to us. When we release our notions of being separate from all that surrounds us, then we actually open ourselves to information from various planes of existence.
There is so much more I can, and will, say on this topic. However, let’s just start here. Gently allowing these thoughts to untie the knots that keep us bound to repeating the past. A past that perhaps hasn’t served us as well as we would like it to.
Here is an invitation to let go of what you were told you were, and step into what you know you are.
You are vaster than you have previously imagined.
(the mushrooms taught me once that the secret to magic is not identifying with any particular consciousness or state of being. then one can traverse the realms more easily.)