Wisdom & Empowering Tips for August 2012

Are you ready to embrace wisdom and enhance your life?

Wisdom symbol.The theme for August is POWER.

There are many ways to work with a theme of power and for this month it is more about looking at where you give your power away and then changing that behavior or pattern. It is also about learning to empower your desires from within rather than always looking to a greater power outside yourself to make things happen. This is a great month to revisit the idea of power and energy leaks and to spend some intentional time reworking your patterns in these areas.

Power and can show up in many ways. Power is health, vitality, truth, love, resources, awareness, creativity, service, acceptance, attention, connection, joy, ability, talent, recognition, expression, freedom and choice just to name a few. These are what you practice or embody and what no one can take away from you. So the resources we are mentioning are not resources that can be taken but rather inner resources of resiliency, flexibility, and personal talent and creativity. What power is not includes control, worry, negativity, resistance, oppression, slavery, fear, and any practice or behavior that is run by the obstacles of the false personality

We all have an idea about what power is. We also all have a definition of what a powerful person looks like and acts. We have been told all our lives about what and who has more power than we do and when it is best just to do as you are told without question. This is a month when all of this automatic behavior comes into questioning and reevaluation. At the end of the day, you are the one who gets to decide whether or not to give your power to something or someone. You will also get to evaluate whether something is capable of empowering you or not.

The task this month is to study where you put your energy. Is it a good investment or not? If you spend your time worrying about something that could happen you are giving your power away to the future that has not yet manifested and may never manifest. There is no power in that. However if you put that same energy into gratitude, you will not only feel better, you will be greatly empowered rather than disempowered. Anything that keeps you in the present rather than regretting the past or worrying about the future is a much greater source of power.

Procrastination is also a great power leak. Take up the motto this month of “DO IT NOW” and get a handle on your procrastination. If you can’t “do it now” then decide when, make a plan, and forget about it. It is not the timing that is the power giveaway; it is the worry and obsession that goes along with it. This is giving your power away to time.

Another common power giveaway is deferring to another’s preference all the time, saying yes to doing things you truly do not wish to do, and compromising yourself in an effort to keep the peace in a volatile environment or to please someone in a relationship. This never works, as it will breed resentment in the long run. Anything you do with strings attached has an expectation on the other end, either yours or someone else’s. Expectations set you up for disappointment and limit the power available. Practice doing things because you want to and if you are in a situation such as a job or family commitment that requires some degree of sacrifice and compromise, remember that you chose this on some level. The best approach is to continue choosing it fully and from service rather than martyrdom.

There are many ways that people give their power away to others, to institutions, to those they consider more powerful or more knowledgeable, to government, to authority, to addictions, and to anything they consider vital to their survival. These are too numerous to list. However you can examine your own life and see where you may make some small changes to take your power back where it makes sense. Reevaluate what you thought was more powerful than it really is. What makes you react in a fearful way? Does it really have power over you?  Continually asking yourself questions is an important practice and will help you deepen your wisdom.

The other part if this equation is looking at what truly does have power and being receptive and open to it as a source of energy, inspiration and vitality. Anything in nature and the elements, essence connection, your own creativity, beauty, starlight, love, the sun and moon, a waterfall, sacred mountains, a storm, just to name a few. The more time you spend in communion and practice with natural sources of power, the more powerful you will be from within and the more wisdom you stand to acquire.

How the month shows up:

YOU PERSONALLY

You have the opportunity to examine where you give your power away and to consciously make choices to change that behavior. If you are always deferring to another’s decisions out of fear, you are giving your power away. If you are letting your obstacles (stubbornness, greed, self-destruction, arrogance, self-deprecation, impatience, martyrdom) get the better of you and influence your decisions, you are giving your power away. This month is a time to take your personal power back from the habits and patterns that do not serve you.

You can also make great strides in empowering yourself personally through practices of being around natural power consciously. The next time you see a beautiful sunset, open yourself up to the power of the beauty and absorb it into yourself. If you take one thing every day and turn it around from being a power giveaway into a practice of empowerment you will be doing good work. For example if you are always judging and speaking negatively, spend a set amount of time speaking only positively and suspending all judgment. Then follow this up with a practice of gratitude.

RELATIONSHIPS

Relationships could see power struggles depending on the nature of the relationship. There is also an opportunity to empower relationships with more truth, creativity, joy, freedom, choice, love, attention and wisdom. It is important to try and take the expectations out of the equation. It will become clear once you take your power back from relationships where you have been giving it over, whether the relationship is still viable.

Some relationships have been built on an imbalanced platform of power where one person has given their power away. Once the power is taken back, the relationship either has to reconfigure a new platform or dissolve. Reconfiguring a new platform usually requires a time of separation or disconnection to be successful.

A good practice to do with regards to relationships is the practice of giving acknowledgment, attention, acceptance, freedom and choice to others. Give it without expecting anything back. This gets you away from focusing on yourself and into the service of empowering others. By eliminating the expectation you also make yourself available for that experience to come to you in ways maybe you never imagined.

HEALTH AND THE PHYSICAL BODY

Where do you give your power away? To your addictions, to your health practitioners, to your bad habits, to your lethargy or fear, to your illness, to your beliefs about aging, to your beliefs about what the body is capable? This is a time of examination and taking your power back from where you have given it away. It is also a great month to drop the excess weight, worry, obsession, doubt, and fear. It is maybe the best opportunity so far to reestablish a new relationship with your body and empower it as never before. Acknowledge it, have gratitude, give it love and attention, decorate it, get some new clothes, feed it some good food, take it out into nature as much as possible and let it run and play.

This is a time to move away from fear and mistrust to trust and relationship. The body will respond to physical nurturing and loving attention from you and from others. You may through periods of lethargy or depression. Use your will to get out and walk and be in nature. The body is designed to move. Notice how your thoughts about what it is you need to do are the ones making you tired and not the actual activity. Notice when you give your power away to your thoughts and beliefs especially around your body, your health and what you are capable of.

FINANCE, PROJECTS, PARTNERSHIPS, BUSINESS

This can be an exciting month for projects, partnerships and business. The opportunity for empowering them is huge provided they are infused with the right kind of power. For example if you have been waiting for a certain investor to come along to launch your business and you believe that you cannot do it without them, you are setting yourself up for disappointment and perhaps failure. If however you focus on infusing your business with the powerful support of inspiration, the right people, creativity, resourcefulness, flexibility, the power of an ally, the support of the four directions and other natural elements, you will open the opportunity for great success. The key is dropping the expectation of what it should look like.

Examine where you are giving your power away and take it back. There is a great movement now away from larger corporate entities and towards smaller more local business models. The more personal of a relationship you can have with your projects, finances and business the better. Stay involved and inspired. If you are entangled in an old model with partners that cannot change, you may need to take your power back and do something else. Any project that is launched in the right way this month has the possibility of great success. If it is not right, it will be obvious.

The above is an excerpt from the monthly forecast.

The author of this commentary, Lena Stevens, is the co-founder of an international school and consulting firm dedicated to the study and application of shamanism and wisdom.  Lena Stevens has co-authored books with Jose Stevens, Ph.D., such as Secrets of Shamanism:Tapping the Spirit Power Within You.

Click here to access the full forecast on their website to  learn more wisdom & specific power days of the month.