Claim Your Power - Live True to Soul

This morning, on a Saturday, I woke before dawn, though I’d been hoping to sleep in.

Instead, before I even opened my eyes, I woke with the download that my life isn’t meant to be hard (last night I was having a tantrum about this); my life is meant to demonstrate sovereignty and personal empowerment. I'm meant to claim my power. I'm meant to live True to my Soul.

Because, as a collective, we don’t have sovereignty right now. We are not empowered.

“WE” have, somehow, as Americans, handed our country over to a madman who is supported by countless other mad men and women.

We watch with horror, disbelief, anger, frustration, confusion, fear, and don’t know what to say. We mutter, “How did this happen?” as we watch our beloved country crumble around us.

And yet “WE” do the same thing the politicians are doing—give our power away in countless ways. This is how the system is set up. This is how the system has thrived. And we’re finally seeing it now. It’s not hidden from us anymore. We’re watching as a worldwide sex trafficking ring is being literally ignored by our government because the people involved are rich and powerful, and it goes all the way to the top. If you stop for a minute and think how utterly repugnant that is, it takes your breath away. This has been going on for decades, maybe longer, and we ignored it.

I took an independent study course on Human Trafficking back in 2008. I couldn’t fathom how something so barbaric could be going on without anyone knowing or caring. It seemed like the consensus was that if we couldn’t clearly see it, we didn’t have to think about it, and didn’t have to care. “We have enough to worry about.”

Nearly 20 years later, we act “shocked” by the headlines—headlines that barely scratch the surface of a modern-day slavery trade that never truly ended after the Civil War; it simply went underground.

So now that we SEE, what can we do?

There are countless things. Protest, get involved in the community, non-profits, etc., but most importantly: look within.

I talk a lot about energy and energetic alignment. This is what I mean. I’ll give you an example from my own life, the one I woke up with before dawn this morning, regarding yesterday’s tantrum.

I’ve been allowing the opinions of others to talk me out of publishing the book my soul has been calling me to write.

Since 2000, when I started this project, I have been advised by book agents, editors, and coaches to change my book’s format to match the market. The latest was a session with an author who has published seven books, whom I greatly admire. She posted on Instagram that she loves reading people’s diaries due to how authentic and messy they are. I thought for sure she would understand and was so excited to meet with her.

She didn’t understand. She advised me to change the arc of the story and make several other changes to it, to better fit what publishers want.

I listened intently and mulled over her suggestions, knowing it wasn’t the path for me. Knowing this book has to be published as is – raw and authentic.

A Dark Night of the Soul doesn’t give a fuck about a tidy story arc.

But again, I was discouraged and deflated. Even this greatly admired spiritual self-help author is advising me against it.

So I put the project on the shelf for another year.

In the meantime, I bitch and moan about my day job, frustrated and angry that I can't find the way out.

My recent epiphany is that, somehow, this book is my way out.

I’ve been allowing myself to be derailed time and time again because I’ve taken the advice of “experts.” I’ve given my power over to them instead of listening to my inner authority.

This is what I’m talking about.

This is what we do all day, every day. We’re taught to give our power away from the time we’re born. Then, we’re easy to manipulate and control through the fear of what will happen if we don't comply.

Someone in my family once said to me, “I don’t listen to my intuition, I listen to the experts.” Yes, that is what we’re taught to do and, also, the answer to our question, “How did this happen?” This is exactly how it happened. We gave our power away to those we thought we could trust, but perhaps without considering their motives.

We have an inner authority. I call it the soul. It is the part of us that is eternal and sovereign. It speaks to us continuously through what we call our intuition. We just need to learn to listen.

This is what it means to align with our souls. This is all we need to know.

The situation in the United States is offering us a gift: THE GIFT TO SEE. It’s not hidden anymore. We are ALL affected, even those outside the U.S. We can’t ignore it anymore. We can’t be complacent anymore.

Change starts with us, aligning small choices we make every day with our highest knowing. As we do, our energy shifts within, and through the ripple effect, it shifts the world around us.

This is the answer to our personal crises and the global crises. So each day, ask yourself, “What’s one thing I can do to align with my inner knowing, my soul?” And then Just Do It.