personal power

Know your own mind

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With many voices of so called authority speaking through your shiny devices, your 24 hour news, TV, radio, podcasts, newspapers, e-mail, Facebook, and other social media, you might be tempted to allow them to dictate your agenda, your itinerary, your thoughts, your fears, your beliefs, your affiliations, your choices large and small, your taps and clicks.

You are the curator of your life, the gatekeeper of your thoughts and beliefs. You are in charge unless you decide to give away your power to those who wish to sow discontent, to change your mind, to implant their beliefs in you, to distract you from more important things, to manipulate your behavior, to make a buck from having you click on their content, play their little games and come under their spell.

I say to my human friends, step up, take back your autonomy, your inner power. Trust your innate authority to know yourself! Regain confidence in your own beliefs. Look inward and get to know your own mind, so you can stand in the light of your own personal truth.

Of course you must get the facts then make up your own mind. Choose your sources wisely. Do they have an axe to grind, stuff to sell, a point of view that disregards reality? Are they trying to manipulate you?

Turn off the 24/7 news, noise, misinformation, opinion and infotainment to allow yourself the freedom of peace and quiet.

Get to know your own heart and mind, the truth at your center.

Survival

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You are still here. You who are alive , you have survived furious storms, widespread sickness, social upheaval, massive migrations of people, loss of wild places. And yet you endure. Our planet endures.

New life finds a way. Seedlings push up through the crusty soil, reaching to the sun through cracks in concrete and stone.

You too, will find a way to survive.

You deserve wholeness. You deserve healing. No matter what has happened in your life, what you have done, what you have endured you deserve to live as fully as possible. You can reclaim 100% of your inner power, your spark of divine light, your heart and will.

Monarch butterfly and wildflowers

Know this. If you are alive in a body at this moment in time you can find peace, you can learn to communicate with your wise self and get to know your heart and spirit. You can live authentically, beyond the surface roles and costume dramas of daily life. You can get to know the true core of your spirit.

Ask for help if you need it!

Examine your beliefs. No belief, no physical condition, no problem or challenge is carved in stone or cast in concrete unless you believe it to be so.

You are made of energy. Your physical being is in constant motion, constant ebb and flow. Energy obeys and follows your thoughts and beliefs! So create new kinder thoughts that will gently shift your energetic reality to what you want.

When you know this you will survive and thrive!

More about Potential

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There is great potential here on this planet!

Your thoughts, words, actions, and beliefs have very real consequences and effects that will manifest in your life in some way. This is power! Use it wisely!

When you emanate fear, fear returns to you. It is all you see. When you radiate love, love is reflected back to you. Your life is rich in love. When you hate and seek to tear down and destroy others, this energy will return to you in some way. You will feel the harmful effects.

Pay attention to the energy you put out into the world.

Cottonwood seed pods

When anyone is left behind or treated as less than others, less deserving, other, unworthy, this energy reverberates through the web of life and diminishes those who do the diminishing.

When you plant seeds of harmony with your eyes open, your ears unstopped, your heart tuned to love, harmony will be restored to the web of life. This means to you and your family. It means every living being will benefit from your integrity.

You have the potential to heal, to harm, to tear or to restore. Every thought, word and action of yours has significance in the world you wish to create for yourself and all others.

Beautiful spider web

Your thoughts, words, and actions are filaments in the web of life. You weave the web thread by thread.

Healing Entanglements

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To reach your full light your peak flow and effectiveness, you may need to heal some of the entanglements from your past.

These may be entanglements with tired old beliefs that once seemed to keep you safe, entanglements with people who you discover do not have your best interests at heart.

Autumn trees at dusk

Perhaps you are entangled with those who were friends or lovers of your youth, but who were not able to grow and learn from life and heal themselves as you did. And now your relationship with them does not feed your soul any longer, but drains you.

Take courage! Take heart! Gather your will and your inner power as you reinvent your life and create healthy new beliefs, uplifting new friendships and let go of the stale old patterns and habits of thought that keep you small.

Yes, this healing can happen for you, step by step, hour by hour, little by little. This is not an easy overnight process! You must do the difficult work of healing, of letting go, and learning to trust and love yourself. There is no substitute!

Ask for help from a healer, therapist, trusted friend, compassionate spirit helpers, or a wise mentor as you enter into this life changing path. You do not have to do this alone!

After a time, you will look back on yourself and see how far you’ve come in the evolution of your soul and how much healthier you are in mind body and spirit.

Grandmother Cottonwood, summer

Dear ones, once you have seen the light, you will never want to go back to the entangled you, the small and hurting you. You may have some good memories of those days, still keep in touch with old friends on a surface level, but remember this: after you have been born, you cannot go back into the womb.

I am calling you to your highest self, your wise self. I am calling you to tap into your true inner power based on your innate worth as a child of earth and spirit!

Grow to the light

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Tree grow tall to the sun, our source of energy and we root deeply to the earth, our home base, our ground of existence.

We may grow in a group together, but we do not lean to the right to the left to help another smaller tree to more light.

Community of cottonwoods

We do not weaken ourselves to help others grow. We are strong together, each taking our place in the light. When a mature tree dies the young saplings crowding underneath will shoot up quickly into the sunlight, finally finding their own place in the canopy.

Be like a tree. Do not weaken yourself or sacrifice your energy and power or hold yourself back because another adult is weaker, has less energy, is farther behind than you.

Of course you will help and protect and love your children. Human children need more care, attention and togetherness than cottonwood seedlings.

Grandmother Cottonwood

If you want to, show them where their power lies. Reflect their strengths to them, let them access the source of power within themselves

Weakening yourself to help other grown people never works because the others do not know what to do with your energy, your power, your knowledge. They will squander your gifts while draining you. For nothing!

They will either learn to access their own power and stand on their own feet or they will not. If they do not, please bless them on their life’s path and let go of your misplaced responsibility

Your job is to grow to the light and spread your branches!

Trust in your spirit

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Your spirit is connected to all that is even if you don’t remember this. You knew this as an infant, as a child and you can know this again.

Painted lady butterfly on red zinnia

Your spirit is the great receiver of inspiration, the great channeler of divine energies. What you see smell touch taste, hear is information needed to live successfully in your body on your chosen planet.

Your body is the how of survival on Earth. Your spirit is the why of your life, gives your life meaning.

Balance between your body and spirit ensures that you live a full life, receiving divine inspiration and guidance through the spirit, living fully in the body, grounded and anchored energetically to the earth, keeping your body healthy and vibrant.

You are a being with access to your full power when you live in harmony with all of life.

Black and white butterfly on red flower

You receive inspiration and guidance through the spirit. You use these inspirations as fuel to create and act and build your life through the vehicle of your body.

Use your power wisely

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Time to take stock: Do you use your powers for the betterment, the uplifting of our earth and her creatures? Do you use your powers to shine your own light in this world?

Grandmother Cottonwood

When a human uses their power to hurt and abuse others, to destroy with wanton disregard for the sacredness of each individual, they cause the web of life to tear. This skews the amazingly intricate and beautiful patterns of love and connection that support us all.

In this way, patterns of abuse and ugly behavior are passed down in families and communities.

The fabric of a once beautiful tapestry becomes torn and tattered and more so over time. Make no mistake, this damage will be reflected somehow in the lives of those who hurt and abuse and know they are causing pain.

They cannot escape from the consequences of their actions. All the money in the universe will not rescue one who hurts others from their karma.

Grandmother Cottonwood

If you are causing pain to others, or thinking about it, please ask for help from a therapist, clergy, or healer.

You do not have to repeat the hurtful behavior of your family or ancestors… Find some way to heal your spirit, your thinking, your feeling, your beliefs, so that you can become a builder of the web; one who strengthens the connections between all things.

Those of you adults who witness or know of abuse must stand in your power, gather your courage and do whatever you safely can to get help, to make it stop!

In this way, using your power wisely, you help to reweave the web of life on this earth into the beautiful patterns of love and connection that are meant to be.

Are you a caretaker?

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Do you deplete yourself in an effort to help others? Do you give your energy and power away to those who appear helpless and powerless? Are you a born caretaker?

Dear ones, your power energy and life force are the most precious treasures you’ve been given in this life! Without them you will wither away and lose vitality and joy. They are yours and yours alone and are not transferable!

Male cardinal in early spring

Have you noticed that those you’ve sacrificed for, given your power to don’t even realize or notice or acknowledge the great gifts you are offering them? They can’t figure out what to do with your gifts? It is as if your gifts are dust.

The only solution is to keep and maintain your own light and power and energy. If the person in your life is open you might help them find and access their own light, tap into their own power.

If they are not aware of this dimension of life and can’t or won’t heal, offer them a blessing and withdraw your shoring up of their weak foundations. For as you give more to them than you can afford, you weaken and deplete yourself.

Maybe they will blame you for their failures. Please do not accept the blame, for they alone must do the difficult work of healing. They alone must reach out for help in tapping into their own power, light and life force.

They must look reality square in the face and make changes in their lives. They may choose not to do this. If so, you must withdraw to a safe distance.

Safeguard your precious life force. Learn to put yourself first!

Tap into your light, power, and oneness

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When it is dark, do you remember that you yourself are a source of light?

When you feel powerless, do you remember that your power lies within?

When you feel alone, do you remember that you are one with all of life?

When you are aligned with source, your light can bring you peace, show you the best way forward, help you define your life’s purpose, show you what is most important for you to focus on during your sojourn here with your precious limited time.

Robin in winter

Knowing that you are a source of light will help you let go of the fluff, the trivia in your life and do what you came here to do.

When you call back and tap into your inner power, you will begin to move through fears that limit and stifle you. Your power will help you move forward in life with clarity, take action in the physical world that will bless you and others

Knowing your oneness and connection with all of life means you have constant guidance and spirit at your side. You will know your integral part in the web of life and that you belong here, you are needed wanted, and desired here!

You will no longer question your existence or if you have a right to take up space, breathe the air and use the water. You know will know in your heart that you’re not alone.

Bless yourself by tapping into your light, power and oneness and you bless yourself and all the earth.

Teach by example

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Dear one, is your heart heavy with fear for others?  Do you worry about your family? 

You can help them without depleting yourself by seeing and witnessing their power, their strengths their capabilities, their talents, and reflecting this back to them in words and actions.

You are saying to them – “I know you can do this… I know you are capable… I know you can figure this out… this is what I’ve seen in you before…”  This is gentle coaching – leading by example – inspiring those around you.

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GCW in winter

Let them know you trust them to step up to the plate and do what needs to be done.  Your job is not to rescue, or save, but to be a light, to shine a light for them.

When you feel the familiar fear, go inward and feel it in your body.  It might be a tightening in your heart, a resistance in your throat, a roiling in your belly.  Pay attention to your feelings with love.  Breathe deeply for a few moments and allow yourself to be fully present to your body’s signals.

Feel your fear. “Give it your compassionate attention.” – Pema Chodron

This will help you find the courage to tune into the power within you.  Go deep into the living well of your life force and draw up the strength and fortitude and will to heal your life! Even though you feel fear, you can shine brightly and stand in your power. 

You teach by example!  Those you worried about in the past can learn to stand in their own power, reach deep within themselves and find the resources to thrive.