January Newsletter: Strange Times
When you look around at all that is going on in the world today, it can be confronting, challenging, and heartbreaking, which is why we must have resources that allow us to keep joy and hope alive.
But just because something is unfamiliar – like a stranger that we come across with suspicion – doesn’t mean it’s bad. Perhaps, instead, it’s an opportunity to be curious, to learn, and to create new conversations.
It’s so easy to judge what we don’t understand because – rooted in prejudice – judgment requires no real effort. We can all do this at times and learning new skills to disrupt that pattern takes practice. It takes an expansive, open mind to explore outside of the confines of what is familiar.
This is a time of radical (root) change at the tectonic plate level of who we are, as a people, as a culture, and as a global community. Our collective relationship with power is being challenged and we are beginning to weave a new reality.
As we witness the paradigm of power shifting throughout the world, our relationship to personal power is also being challenged, which is so important in how we show up in the world, how we express our gifts and how we allow ourselves to shine.
But like every paradigm shift, the tremors on the surface are uncomfortable and can get us to hunker down and stop moving forward into the unknown. The strange new place we are heading to has no road signs. Again, this doesn’t mean that it’s bad, but an opportunity to be curious.
What we're living through is an upgrade of every level and is reshaping how we really want to be in a relationship with power.
So my question to you is, how is your relationship with your personal power? I know that's a big question, but it’s crucial if we are to architect a new framework on this planet where the relationship with power has a foundation of compassion.
If we want peace, we have to understand where we are not at peace. If we want love, we have to heal where we are blocking love. This is where and how we co-create a new earth that is rooted in love and truth. Is this radical? Yes. Will it happen overnight? No. Expansion happens after contraction.
This brings me to the work I've done as a Self-Mastery Life Coach for many years. My work is not done, but what I've mastered is this: if you do not heal and understand where you are at war with yourself, that energy will play out in your relationships with others. This can show up through shame, judgment, projection, blame, people-pleasing, perfectionism and control.
Control is just a form of power that is out of balance, so it's important to observe where control is hijacking our happiness so that we can reclaim our relationship with our worth and self-esteem.
The war inside kills your spirit and extinguishes any chance of connection and – because of outdated beliefs that are rooted in fear – it will annihilate where love is trying to bloom.
So the work is focused on how we can make this internal warfare conscious. How can we learn to love, reparent, and metabolize the hurt and pain of not feeling like enough so that we reclaim our power, our light, and our beauty? Because we are enough as we are.
Someone said to me recently, “I'm tired of all the lessons, it's hard” and I said “yes it is, and the lessons don't stop, but what makes it easier is accepting and releasing the resistance to the lessons because they will confront where you hold shame in the form of stubbornness and control.”
Letting go of control is not a thought concept, it is a feeling practice. The need for control lives deep in our bodies and gives us the illusion of safety that was once needed to protect us but now is time to update.
So as we enter into 2024 and the paradigms of power appear to be shifting, the time is ripe to shift and sweeten the relationship that you have with your own personal power.
Lean into the strange and find a way to dwell in the unknown, as it may hold the keys to where you are being asked to travel. The new paradigm is unfamiliar, so we have to go beyond what we know and trust our inner light to guide us.
May we burn away the calcified structures of domination and burn the flame of new beginnings. I see a paradigm that is in alignment with love, truth and equanimity. Lean into yours and may we co-create together. Keep your spark alive.