Noticing Your Power, Being at Cause for Everything, Changing your Life

When my son was about three years old, we went to Saint Lucia, a beautiful island in the Caribbean for vacation.  One day we were at the beach and my son, who loves all things water and swimming, spent most of his time hanging out in the ocean. At one point, black clouds started gathering and it became ominously dark. Yet my son continued playing in the water, dancing as the waves pushed him, and enjoying it all.  Suddenly, the skies opened, dumping sheets of warm water toward the earth. I retreated to underneath a thatched canopy of a beachfront restaurant from where I could continue watching my son.  He sat meditation position, cross-legged in the shallower water, where the gentle breaking waves just moved him slightly as they rolled around him at about chest height. Soon afterward, literally about seven minutes later, much faster than I had anticipated, the sun came back out and the black clouds seemingly just disintegrated.

I went to go check on my son and tell him I loved him. I commented on the weather and how quickly it had shifted. My three year old son lifted his head, looking directly into my eyes and told me with the matter of fact truth of a three year old with the view of the world that children that age have: “I made the clouds disappear and the sun come back”.

I reflect on a lesson from another mentor who continually emphasizes that we create everything in the world, even things seemingly bigger and uncontrollable, like the weather. My three year old knew this (now he acts mortified when I tell this story). If I do create everything, how should I be more cautious about my thoughts? Where should I make sure I focus on what I want, rather than on what I don’t want to manifest? How about you? What are three things in your life you’d like to see differently? Could you write those down, track your thoughts the next 30 days, consciously focus on culling negative thoughts and reinforcing positive ones, and see how your life feels on those three dimensions in 30 days?

Shamanic Harvesting of Power

My life is filled with many fears. There are fears of heights, fears of getting hit by a bus or truck, fear of rejection, fear of being unloved, fear of being unlovable, fear of not being enough and the list can go on an on. Put me in a situation and make me feel safe enough to really reach inside, and see what I feel, and I could list a good number.

The Shamanic harvesting of power is around taking an inventory of fears (rather than repressing fears, clenching the sphincter, restricting breathing (which literally restricts blood flow to the brain, reducing intelligence and awareness)). Next, if there is an action I can identify right now to take to overcome that fear, I GAIN HUGE PERSONAL POWER.

Once I can overcome my fear, I gain massive personal power. Anything I was afraid of and subsequently overcame, makes me feel like a freaking rockstar, a god.

That is the purpose of so many rituals of empowering people in our world. This is at the heart of the tribal rituals around facing death. Many warrior cultures in Africa, from the Zulu to the Masai, have their young men face death through ritual circumcision with a sharp piece of stone. It’s about the ritual of the fire walk brought to the West by personal power teachers like Tony Robbins. It’s about the ritual of climbing to the top of a telephone pole and standing on it, balancing before jumping off (While harnessed – author is not liable for any injuries caused to and by careless readers).

Overcoming any fear creates a massive sense of power and the feeling that doing anything challenging is actually good for me, rather than listening to the fear and shrinking from it.

What fear can you identify in yourself today, lean into, and take action on?  Where can you do exactly what you are afraid of at that moment? Where can you overcome that fear and feel the sense of your tremendous power, your warriorhood, your divinity in being far greater than the erroneous perception of your limitations?