Below is a transcript of the episode as generated by Otter.ai. (*please note, this transcript has only been edited to put in line breaks for easier readability and may contain errors where a word or phrase got lost in transcription.)

[0:35] Introduction to Episode

Hello, hi, everybody. Welcome to Your Heart magic. This is Dr. BethAnne Kapansky. Wright, and it is our 30th episode. I just smiled saying that I happen to notice that it's exactly 1133 on my clock. And as you know, I love myself a double number love those Angel numbers. So that feels like a lovely blessing for our 30th episode.

And today on your heart magic, we are talking about the topic standing in your power. And we are going to be exploring ideas around what is power? How can we think about the idea of having a sense of personal power and being in our personal power in a way that feels helpful, and that feels empowering, and that feels obtainable. No matter where we might be at in the journey, we are also going to be looking at what power isn't.

And just playing with some ideas around how can we more effectively own our power, have a sense of personal sovereignty and personal empowerment, and feel more comfortable being in a space of power? The constant power itself is an interesting word. I've not done this, but it's kind of flashing in my mind right now that it would be really interesting just to sit down and in your journal, write the word power, and write down a free association of what comes to mind.

[2:17] Understanding The Concept of Power

When you think about the concept of power. What do you think about do you have a sense of like super powers, you know, is this some sort of like cosmic galactic extraordinary thing is power, somebody who's in charge, and somebody who has a lot of influence or who has a lot of some kind of status or something like that, that they are in a leadership role, and people listen to them, and people follow them is power, something that maybe is quieter to you, and you have different associations with power.

And maybe for you power is something associated with nature and giant waterfalls, or being in a forest with these amazing trees that are really tall, and they've been standing there forever.

It might be fun to just explore concepts around power, and to explore the idea of who comes to mind, whether it's somebody that you know, or somebody that is more of a public figure, or even a character and a beloved book or movie, like who comes to mind is somebody who embodies a sense of personal power, and standing in their power in ways that you might admire? And who comes to mind as people who might abuse their power, or who begin been given a lot of power. And you are sitting there thinking, How in the world did they get that? It doesn't really seem like they've earned it.

You know, it's an interesting thing, when we really start to break down our relationship to this word, and our relationship to how we understand concepts around power. And I think in order to embody a sense of personal power, we have to understand what are associations?

What are our associations with the word power in the first place, because if we have negative connotations about that, and we have experienced things in our life, where perhaps there was an abuse of authority, or we have had personal experiences with somebody who held power over us in some shape or form, and they did not exercise that authority or that power in a way that was fair or just our right, we might have a negative connotation about it.

There are a lot of things that can sometimes be and the bedrock of our foundation, when it comes to our relationship to things Just like power, or status, money, influence, like all of those words, elicit something in somebody and elicit some sort of a feeling. And they're just words. They're just concepts.

We have a sense of a definition and a sense of understanding about them, based on consensus reality, like what we all see and experience in our world, and what we experience in our personal world. And those things are what informs our values and our beliefs around those.

So I think when we talk about the idea of standing in our power, we want to know what we're standing on. And if you have experiences and the bedrock of your life, that make you feel that power is somehow a maybe a scary thing or a bad thing, or maybe it's unobtainable, in some way, those are worth working through, because they're not the truth of spirit.

And ultimately, when we think about the idea of being an our power, we are wanting to be able to come into a space of wholeness and belief in ourself, where we feel empowered to bring our most authentic expression bit, bring our brightest self, bring our gifts, bring our talents, bring whatever we feel called to bring into this world, because we know we're here with purpose, we know that our spiritual connection and our faith in the light.

And however you understand your relationship to the Divine, we know that our hearts and our heart wisdom and our love are what allows us to move forth in the world in a powerful way. So what are we standing on, is a good place to start, when we're exploring the concept of power. And since we're already talking about it, I'm just going to keep kind of staying with this idea.

Before we talk more about what is power, we're going to talk about what power isn't, and what power isn't true power isn't. It's not something that truly comes from having a lot of status, or having a lot of things or having a lot of money or having a lot of influence. Now there are I think associations with power that come with that.

And certainly the way that we have our world structured right now and set up, we tend to reward people who have a lot of these things. But we're really talking today about spiritual power, not about like earthly power and worldly power, and what our, we'll just say, kind of the the norm and our world times to award we're like talking about how do we tap into a space of empowerment inside of ourselves.

And it doesn't come from stuff. Now those things might make us feel secure. That is true. If we have achieved goals, or done things where we have accomplishments that make us feel good about ourselves and help us feel like I'm a capable person. Those things might inform a sense of self efficacy and self mastery and belief in ourselves.

But if we are going to walk around feeling like turning in a resume and having all this stuff on a resume, you know, our certain amount and bank account or a certain amount of accomplishments is what makes us a powerful person, we're really missing the bigger picture.

[8:43] Where Personal Power Comes From

And the bigger picture says that our personal power really comes from our relationships, the light, it comes from our belief in ourself. And we've seen this, we've seen people who might not have a lot of things and an external sense, move about the world in a way that they invite others to follow them, or others are inspired by their paths inspired by what they take.

If you've ever just even worked with a group. It's interesting to observe group dynamics, because usually in groups, somebody is in charge. You know, if this is a typical structured group, or somebody brought the group together or has a leadership role, and often that person is the one that people look to.

But in group settings, it's always interesting to see that sometimes people who are not in a leadership role will emerge with leadership qualities, because they present in a way that somehow translates as powerful. There's something about a sense of self assuredness, something about their energy. There are these intangible qualities that we can't always define, but we feel them when we see them.

Sometimes we talk about the idea of when we really call to vacate a peaceful presence and cultivate our energy and cultivate an open heart, and a, you know, just really like beautiful pure energy.

You know, I've heard of this idea that somebody is able to walk into a room and without saying anything, you know, just through their energy through their spiritual relationship, they change the frequency in that room, they change the feeling in that room. And we know this is true, because we know what it's like when somebody walks into a room, and they're in a terrible mood. And you can feel it, when somebody comes in, and they are not in a good place, and they are upset or angry or really dark.

Oftentimes, we might be able to feel that, especially for those who are listening who identify as impasse, you might very easily pick up that you could be out at some restaurant or out with a friend or out doing something, and you're chatting, you're having a great time, you're not noticing what's going on around you.

And all of a sudden, you feel like a heaviness, or maybe feel like a little bit of frustration, or you feel something that came out of nowhere. And you look around and realize somebody walked in and they look like they're in a really bad mood, it's very likely you are empathically picking up on their energy.

And so we know that when somebody is in a negative place, that oftentimes like we can sense it, especially people not apart from like spiritual people, maybe who are very sensitive and very in tuned, empathically, it's not uncommon psychologically, for people who are raised in family systems where there might have been a lot of conflict, maybe there was addiction, maybe there was some problems or dysfunction in the family system.

And one of the ways that this child learned to cope is by reading the room. And I'm sensing where people are at and be really tuning into the energy and tuning into where somebody is. And so they might turn into an adult who's really good at picking up on nonverbal cues, or very sensitive to somebody who comes in to a space, and that person is not particularly grounded in the moment is maybe upset are about to cause conflict. So there's many things that can contribute to picking up on that, from spiritual reasons, to psychological reasons.

But either way, we know that when somebody is in that really kind of negative heavy space, a lot of times we'll feel it. And if somebody is in a light, and a bright and a positive space, a lot of times we'll feel it, if somebody walks into a group, and they just feel like liquid sunshine or something like that. Often it kind of elevates things.

[12:58] Energy Holds The Power To Change A Space

So we can know that power has just as much to do with our energy, just as much to do with our attitude. And just as much to do with what we are putting out there, as it does with who we are. And that is so much more powerful than anything on a piece of paper.

Anything that has to do with like quantifying the kinds of things that we've done or accomplished and it has everything to do with the quality of our hearts, the quality of our energy, the quality of who we are as humans and the quality of who we are choosing to become, there's this beautiful phrase, take responsibility for the energy that you bring to a space.

And I think that really sums up what I was just sharing about with when you walk into a space and you're in a really bad place, versus walking in and being in a really good place. If nothing else, if you are in a bad place, and you need to show up somewhere, it is perfectly okay to invoke your spiritual connection. And I do stuff like this all the time where I'll be like angels. I'm not my best self today, I am not my broadest Self Help me just contain that so I can be present, you know, in this group are present with what I'm about to do.

And none of that leaks out onto somebody else. Like just let me contain it for now. That's my stuff. I don't need to pass that on to other people. So we can be mindful, we don't have to always be bright, positive, joyful and happy. What a beautiful thing to be able to be if that feels authentic, but human being can be difficult.

So when we take responsibility for the energy we're bringing to a space it's not about placing a unobtainable expectation on ourselves. It is about just being mindful of where our energy is at and perhaps doing a little bit of grounding and containment work. If we feel like we're not in the best place so We're staying with this idea that true power is about the quality of who we are.

We want I want to talk a little bit about what power is. And I think one of the things that I want to make very clear is what power is not. And that is anything that comes at a cost of somebody else. Anytime we have to stand on somebody else, anytime we have to put somebody else down anytime that staying in a place of power, comes at a cost to somebody that's not real power, that's domination.

That is an abuse of authority, it is not truly being in power. I think true power is being in right relationship with ourselves, and right relationship with our spiritual connection. However, we might understand that right relationship with ourselves, right relationship with our spiritual connection, however, we may understand that, or maybe however, we may not understand that when we're confused, and we're just open. This is a very fluid definition, a very fluid kind of guideline for what true power is, when we are in right relationship with ourself, we are in right relationship with trying to become our most authentic expression of self.

Being in right relationship with ourself is about listening to our hearts. Heeding their wisdom as best that we know how it is about trying to follow our path, as best as we know how it is about giving ourselves a lot of grace, for course corrections, and realizing that maybe we went in the wrong direction.

And so we're going to loop back. It's not about perfection, when we're in right relationship with ourselves, it is about being able to give ourselves grace, and being able to say, I don't feel like that serving me. So I'm going to work on this issue for a while and do what I need to do to shift that. So I feel like I've come back into alignment with my truth. When we're in right relationship with yourself, we are listening to our truth, we are following that truth and living it to the best of our ability.

We're doing repair work, when we realize that we've made a mistake, or that we went in a direction that really isn't for our highest good. And we make choices, according to now only what our heart tells us to do, but choices according to well, what kind of person do you want to become in this world? What direction do you want to go in with your life, that is what it is to be in coherence with yourself and in integrity with yourself.

And as I said, that's a very fluid concept. Because our identity changes, our truth changes, our heart wisdom, shifts according to the seasons that we're at in life. You know, for the most part, anything our heart tells us to be true for us is probably something that will always feel true throughout the course of our development. But what our heart tells us and what we know is our next step, those things will change in accordance to how we change.

[18:34] The Power of Our Spiritual Connection

When we are in right relationship with our spiritual connection, that is simply being aware that there's so much more than just us to this life. And some of the listeners of this podcast probably have a very well defined sense of what their spiritual connection is. And you've been on the journey for a really long time. And that feels really well developed for you.

Some of you who might be tuning in, it might feel a little bit newer, or you're still exploring, and you're giving yourself permission to be curious and to look into what resonates with your heart and what feels right for you. It does not matter where you're at on the path. It's more about acknowledging that you are part of a greater web of light, you are connected to the light, you are connected to the divine in some shape or form. It is about acknowledging that relationship, and then trying to seek that out and work that spiritual connection to the best of your ability to the best of where you're at in life.

One of the best things that I once told was once told, was this was probably back in I want to say it was 2014 2015. And I was receiving an Akashic reading from somebody who did my reading at the time and I felt like my spiritual connection was growing. And I was really curious I wanted to cultivate that. That felt really important to me. I enjoyed things like intuition, I had a fun Tarot practice. And you know, I was really enjoying reading the cards, I could feel and sense that there was growth for me to have spiritually, but I wasn't entirely sure what that was.

And I remember asking, like, what should I do to increase this connection. And what came through in this Akashic reading of it? Well, if it's a should don't do it, if you're doing it, because you feel like you should do it, then it's probably not right for you at this point in time.

And part of what came through in that reading is one you've had more growth than you think you have. It's like the monkey on your back, you're so used to having it with you now that you don't even realize how much you've changed over the last few years just by listening to your heart and being yourself and kind of being on this journey that you're on. And the other thing that came through was this kind of shift and focus, where I was really encouraged to look at the beautiful life that I was in the process of creating at the time.

Those are some of my favorite years, when I look back on my own timeline, because I was in a space where my husband and I, we were engaged, we weren't married yet. So we were planning like this really fun wedding, it was very simple, very authentic, like very, very us and free spirited and quirky. You know, we had these beautiful Furbabies. And this really fun, you know, kind of vibe going in our family.

And we moved into our house, like, I don't know, you know, in the summer of 2014. And really had gone about the process of making it this really fun, artistic place, all the walls were different colors. You know, it was filled with plants and flowers, it was like this rainbow cottage, and it was really happy. And I remember the Akashic record saying stop worrying so much about what you have to do. And look at what you've been creating, look at this beautiful creative energy that you have been bringing into creating a beautiful life.

And basically planting your roots and love and joy and trying to cultivate beauty and cultivate. You know, just a sense of artistry. And yeah, joy in the household. Look at what you've been doing with your poetry, and how you feel called to write about nature, these things right now are your spiritual connection. So if you want to do something, do it. But if you don't, and you feel like it's a should then wait for a little bit, and just appreciate what you're already feeling called to.

So I say that today, to always encourage us to do what inspires us to keep investing in our spiritual connection. And to do the things that we know perhaps are good for us. You know, there might be days where we do a meditation or do our spiritual practice. And it feels a little bit like a shed, we don't want to but we know it's good for us a little bit like flossing our teeth or drinking water. So we do it anyways. And we feel better afterwards. That's that's positive. I'm not necessarily talking about that, when I'm talking about is feeling like you should do these things.

Because somehow you think it's going to make you more spiritual. And if that's the case, then it's really a dogmatic way of looking at things. I think a true spiritual connection is not so much about having to do something. It's about curiously engaging in practices and joyfully engaging in practices and doing things because they feel good, because they keep us grounded, because we feel connected. Because we see an increase and maybe Synchronicity or magic or spiritual. We continue to spiritually awaken. And we start to meet more people who are on that path.

Those things help us feel like this is so great, I want to keep going. So wherever you're at today, you have a spiritual connection, you have spiritual practices don't minimize what they are. Just look around at what's already present in your world. And when we invest in that, the next step does show itself to us.

The next step for what do I do next? And how do I grow this connection in a way that feels organic and joyful and not forced, it will show itself to us. So we don't have to worry about what we should do. And just pay attention to what we feel guided to do and what we feel led to do. So that's really I think the core of true power. And when we are in right relationship with ourself and we are in right relationship with our spiritual connection, being able to use both of those things as tech stones and guidepost to come back to when we feel disempowered or when we feel knocked out of orbit.

[25:10] Anchoring Into The Energy of Love

We can always anchor into the energy of love. We can always anchor into our truth and say, well, am I living as authentically as I know how? Yes, by doing what's right for me? I'm pretty sure I am, you know, am I opening up and asking spirit to support me and trying to stay open to you know, surrendering a little bit to life and watching the process unfold? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I'm doing that, you know, and if we can come back and use those as these touchstones, I think it really helps us say, All right, then I am in a place of personal power. And I am in a place of just doing me and going about the journey of living my life the best that I know how. And we can really own that.

True Power is about knowing that as a soul having a human experience, an eternal soul, a light, soul, light, body, light soul, you know, here on this planet, having this experience, that you have the right to be your most authentic self, you have the right to cultivate joy, you have the right to search for beauty and cultivate beauty. You know, somebody wants told me that beauty felt that they felt really called to create beauty in this world, through art and through other things.

And somehow that didn't feel like heavy hitting enough for like the big problems that our world has. And it felt like it might be really frivolous. And I remember kind of working with them and talking about how can we flip this, because when I look at this call to create beauty, I think, oh my gosh, our world needs beauty, you know, not from a place of vanity, and not from a place of minimizing the hardship.

But as an offering of creativity, an offering of life, an offering of softness, and gentleness and color. Whatever kind of beauty we feel called to create. It is one of the antidotes to some of the cruelty in this world, and to some of the hatred in this world and some of the fear in this world. Beauty and finding the beauty in something and being fluid. And our definition of what that is, is a beautiful thing to cultivate. And we have a right to search for that in our life.

And to define that for ourselves, we have the right to make choices. And to say, well, I don't care if everybody else is doing this, this is the right choice for me. And I feel it, I have a sense of rightness inside of it, we have the right to own that choice. And to say this is right for me. And to say, I own this, even if nobody else understands, where I think sometimes we begin to struggle is when other people don't get it, especially people who might be close to us. And then we feel judged.

[28:13] Dealing With Criticism

Maybe we feel criticized maybe we feel condemned. And I think that is what puts a lot of self doubt in our mind. And we start to get in our head and we start to question what we already knew to be true for us. Or we accept the voices of criticism over the truth that's in our heart. I was having this thoughtful conversation last night with my, with my husband, we were walking the dogs. And somehow we got onto the topic of my divorce. I don't even remember how you know, when I met him, I think three or four years after I'd gone through that.

So he's heard all about the dynamics, but somehow we were re talking about it. And I was sharing with him at the time that when I went through that period of my life, and I went through that process, this is back in 2010 2011. I really was following my guidance, the best I knew how and I really was doing what I felt was right for me. And I stand by that I believe in it. I believed it at the time.

But I also received a lot of condemnation from the community that I stepped out of, and some very harsh words, very hateful words that were kind of couched in a religious tradition and couched in sort of this very dogmatic sense of, you know, well, this is what God says about divorce. I had made a break from a more, I guess, dogmatic belief system. So my divorce was about many things. It was really about claiming the territory of myself and claiming my own personal beliefs. But I felt this judgment come down on me.

And I remember at the time feeling kind of like has surprised like I had the scarlet letter A on me or something like that, at least some for some of the people that I used to know. It was really hard. I mean, it was really hard. I was not immune at all to the criticism. But one of the reasons that I knew I was making the right decision is despite how hard it was, I stayed with myself and I stayed with my path. And I stayed with what I knew to be true for me, even if people on the outside did not understand my reasons, and did not understand what was happening at the time.

And that stuff, though, that criticism that heaviness, that's the stuff that really planted those seeds of shame in my mind, and not as much self doubt, I think I believed in my decision. But there were definitely times where I felt very vulnerable, I did not feel powerful. I did not feel like I was standing in my power, I think I felt like I was like, crawling in from a very disempowered place. But I was like, I still know this is the right thing to do. So I'm just going to crawl through this desert, and keep on with myself.

Please, no, that's power too- I call today's episode standing in our power, because I wanted to feel empowered creating this episode. And I want all of us to be able to find that place where we feel like we're standing strong. And we are in that place of that right relationship, and really being in coherence with our heart. But there are times that we don't always feel particularly powerful, and we keep going anyways, and we doubt and we wonder, did I make a mistake? Is everybody else right? Am I am I have I lost it, and then this awful person, and everybody else's estimation of my character or my actions is really the truth.

And what I think I know to be true, I'm just deluding myself, you know, there are times that we really get in the way of ourselves and really question and we're not really feeling like we're standing in our power. And I want you to know, today that's power to, we might not feel particularly powerful in the moment.

But when we keep staying with ourselves and our truth, there is power in that. And when we're able to do that, and we're able to come back to a place of really connecting to our heart connecting to ourselves connecting to our intuitive self and our higher self, connecting to our spiritual beliefs, that's often when we are able to stop crawling, and come back into a place of sitting up straight and feeling energetically like we are standing and that we say no, no, I know this to be true, regardless of how much this hurts.

So this is not about perfectly feeling this all the time, it is about knowing how to access that space inside of ourselves. It's about knowing how to pause the world when we need to, and really come back to these touchstone of our heart, our, our higher self, you know, our core self, as I said, our spiritual connection.

And in that moment, receive the guidance kind of like you are checking in and you are getting your marching orders, you are getting your here's what you need to know next. Now go back out there into the battlefield of life, or the Romper Room of life, depending on how you want to look at it, you know, and this is your next right step. But we need those moments where we are able to fill ourselves back up and fill our well of empowerment back up.

And remember, I have a right to be myself. And I have a right to pursue Joy, I have a right to be wrong. Being wrong, does not mean you are not powerful just means you're human. And when we are able to give ourselves grace and just know that we are going to make mistakes along the journey. A different way to look at that might be we're going to collect experiences and some of those experiences we're going to feel really good about and some of them we're going to look at and say, Oh, I wish I would have made a different choice there.

When we are able to work through whatever choice we did make and like I said, do the repair work or course correct or choose to do it differently. All of those things help bring us back into integrity with ourselves. We can still be powerful and mess up. We can still be powerful and not have it together. We can still be powerful and be a work in progress. We can still own our power and say I am powerful exactly as I am. And I'm continuing to grow and change and these are the things that I'm working on. It can be both it does and have to be one or the other.

[35:02] Ways To Own Our Power

So I want to talk a little bit today just about a few ideas for how can we own our power? And how can we give ourselves permission to be in right relationship with this word. I already said this earlier today, but I feel like it bears repeating, I encourage you to come up with a definition of power that works for you.

Period, if a concept of a word doesn't work for you, because what you were showing of that word, was not something that helps you feel good about the word, then rework the definition and make it work for you. If you want to define power, as giving yourself the right to pursue happiness and joy, and being the kindest person you know, to be. And if you're doing those things, you feel powerful, you are making a difference in this world, you are radiating joyful energy, and you are passing that on to other people, then by all means, give yourself permission to work with that construct of power.

If you want to define power to be, let's say, you are on a path and you're very goal oriented. And for you achieving some of these goals feels like you have a sense of empowerment from it. And you want power to be that I am making my goals, I'm staying on track, I am actively working on becoming the person that I want to be. And when I do that, I feel powerful, because I feel like I am fulfilling my potential, then by all means, to find power like that for you. I really think that it is less about what exactly it is and penning down this exact definition and figuring out what do you need to feel good about your relationship with that word? And how can you own that word in a way that feels authentic and true for you.

If you can do that, that becomes the core value of power that you are standing on, that becomes what informs your value system and how you feel that you can step into a space of power in the world. And when you're in alignment with that, that is going to help you stand up a little bit straighter, it's going to help you feel good about the journey that you're walking.

Maybe for you right now, power just means, you know, I'm trying to figure a lot of stuff out in my life. I don't feel particularly powerful, I'm going through a really messy time. But I am committed to listening to my heart, I am committed to showing up for myself and trying to stay with myself and stay my course. And I'm committed to not giving up on myself in this no matter how bad it gets.

There you go. There's your power, that's what you're standing on. That is you being in alignment with your commitment to what makes you feel good about the journey that you're walking. And again, when we feel in alignment with that, that allows us to stand straighter, it allows us to speak with more authority, more personal authority, because we're really grounded and rooted and our truth. I think that we need to become very comfortable with acknowledging our fears, when we are talking about standing in our power.

Because if we're not acknowledging our fears, then we're probably denying our fears or overcompensating for fears or projecting our fears are some other psychological BS that we sometimes do when we are not actively owning parts of ourselves. And instead we disown those, and tend to see them on other people or project them or attract situations into us that make us face them.

So we don't want to disown our fears. We actually want to own our fears and know what's there. If we're standing in our power and we save but I'm actually really afraid of speaking my truth. It's so much more powerful to own that and say I am terrified to speak my truth. And I do not think that I can say what I need to say in this situation from a space of authority. But I'm hoping I can at least whisper it. And even if it's awkward, I'm hoping that I can say it.

Go on a hunt and own that own where you're at with it own the self doubt, own any self criticism, own any fears around what power is own fears that you might have, whatever those are that are unique to you, because we do not have to be afraid of our fears.

What is more scary, is when we pretend like they're not there and sort of do this this false sense of power, where we're just trying to make ourselves bigger or better, have more or do something to overcompensate for stuff that we don't want to acknowledge insecurities or something like that.

When we do that, again, as we talked about, that's not real power, because we're not truly standing in right relationship with yourself, when we're in right relationship with herself, we are embracing the whole of who we are, we are open and curious about who we are, we are not afraid to acknowledge Ooh, there's a pile of shame there, or I've got this stuff in my past. And I don't like talking about it, because it doesn't make you feel good about choices I made.

We don't have to love that stuff. But we have to be willing to witness it. And we have to be willing to acknowledge it and say, I've got these messy closets inside of my inner house, my inner psyche, I've got these rooms where I've been afraid to turn the lights on.

And maybe I'm not ready to yet, maybe it would be psychologically overwhelming to rush into something that's been kind of in the dark for a while, but we can at least know it's there. And we can say, well, I know what's inside of me. And I know that those things will all be addressed at the right time.

But for now, I at least will acknowledge that it's there. So we want to acknowledge our fears, which might sound a little bit counter to standing in our power. But I think it is a beautiful way actually to not be afraid of what we're afraid of. Because we're not avoiding it. We just know it's there. And we can continue to surrender that to spirit and say, This is a growth point for me. And I trust that whatever I need to grow will continue to come to me at the right time.

So that I can continue to heal this and me and stay in the wholeness of myself, stay in right relationship with myself.
 
[41:58] Creating A Life You're Proud Of

Create a life you're proud of. That's powerful. You know, there's this concept of just being our own hero, and being our own best friend. And being our own narrator and seeing our life as this beautiful story, this beautiful journey, this beautiful offering that we are cultivating we are tending. And it is here so that we can enjoy it and take pleasure in it and feel good about the choices we're making. And it's here.

So we can offer parts of what we cultivate to others and to the world around us as we feel called create a life that you're proud of. If you are feeling good about where your life is that and let's say you are called to a quieter path. And you're in a stage of life where right now you are more inward. You are maybe living simply with nature, maybe you write a lot, maybe you're just doing a lot of inner work, maybe you are not called to standard spotlight and hop up on a podcast and talk for an hour. You know, maybe that step isn't for you at all. That's not what power is about.

Anyways, it is about just owning your choices and the life that you made. And if you think I feel really good about the life that I created for myself, it's authentic, it's real. I am working on the stuff that comes up. I am trying to cultivate joy the best I know how that's powerful. That's a beautiful life. That is a beautiful expression of your soul and a beautiful expression of just being a light in this world simply through being yourself. True Power is about simply being ourselves. It is not what we do it is about who we are. That's why we can change a room that we walk into with our energy.

Because we have cultivated who we are and cultivated as many gifts as we can inside of ourselves. True Power is about respecting our journey. I think this is actually a very important concept. And sometimes I think we do not okay, often I think we do not give ourselves credit for the things we're doing in our life that are respectable.

And I think that's because the world kind of I say that in this sort of collective sense. Doesn't tent like tend to hand out gold stars and say, wow, like you have been healing ancestral wounds, and you've really been working hard on your mother wound or you've been working hard on getting over bitterness and hatred from a horrible breakup, but you don't want to care Iran, all this resentment, and so you've been working on healing your heart. Congratulations, here's a $500 cash prize for that, and a gold medal.

You know, our world doesn't award that our world does not award the inner work, there are not accolades for like the gritty work of just kind of going about our shadow work going about struggling with ourselves. There's often not accolades when we are a kind person. I think the gift in that is fostering genuine connections.

And hopefully we get something back from others who smile when they see us. Because they're like, here's that kind person, even if it's a grocery store interaction, and you get to know the checker because you always go through the same line. And they smile when they see you. Because, you know, they know that you there's here's one customer who's going to be kind to them and not treat them disrespectfully and actually see them as a person. You know, there is reward in that, but there's not bigger rewards for those small things.

[46:08] How To Respect Your Journey

And yet, that is really the foundation I think, what do we need to do to respect our journey? That right, there's a great journaling prompt? What are you doing on your journey right now that's respectable? And it's okay to identify? Are there things that you could add or change? Or do more of that you would respect even more if there's something we're doing?

And we feel like, I don't feel like that's a great choice for me. We can always work to do cleanup to do repair work. But what are you already doing that you can respect? Can you see how hard you've tried to heal certain things? Can you see changes that you've made in your life that might not have been easy, but they felt an alignment for you? Where have you been showing up in your life day after day, and whether or not that's awarded, you see that you are really trying to do your best in a situation?

Where have you seen growth in yourself, all of those things are the spaces that we can tap into, and find self respect, I think if we can respect who we are, that radiates from our being, as we move about the spaces around us, and it gives us a little bit more ground to stand on. When we feel like we need to speak up or take right action or say something on our own behalf.

So part of cultivating power is respect your journey and figuring out what am I doing that I already respect? And is there something I might want to change or add or play with a little bit to cultivate more of a sense of self respect for who I am. I think one of the last things that I just want to say is that just stay with yourself, if you stay with yourself, that is our gateway to personal power.

Because when you are living your life from the heart, when you are living your life from a space of trying to listen to your spiritual connection, listen to the wisdom of your heart, trust your intuition, all the things that we talk about on your heart magic, you are very likely going to walk a path that might not always fit in with the world around you. Now, you might not always be like running counter culture and doing your own thing. And there might be some people listening to this who identify with that. And they say no, no, usually I'm called in a completely different direction than everybody else. And that's fine. There's this isn't another not about being right or wrong. It's just about who we are. And the paths for walking, there's many paths to the mountain. And we're all walking slightly different ones.

And some of those will look radically different from another and some of those might parallel each other a little bit more. But for many people, most likely there are spaces that you feel like you fit in, whether it's your job, your family, your community, places like that, where you feel a sense of acceptance or belonging. But you might also find that there are decisions that you feel led to in your life that are not in alignment with what everybody else is doing. I could probably make a really long list of choices like that, that you know, I think most people would be like, I'm gonna go right in this situation. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna go left. My heart's telling me to go left. You know.

So oftentimes, when you are listening to your heart, you will take the road less traveled, because it requires a lot more trust. It requires a lot more faith. It requires a lot more learning to silence the voices of the world around you learning to silence to chatter the condemnation criticism, the you should be doing it this way, you should have X in your bank account by now, you should have stayed in this relationship. I can't believe that you're starting over again. Or you should have accomplished this. Or how can you think this way? You know, consensus reality says that it's like this, how dare you have this belief system. mean, there's so many ways that we can run counter to what everybody else is doing.

And more often than not, I think when we talk about stepping into that space, we are stepping into a space that's less known, it's less linear, a lot more faith is required and a lot more learning to be in that right relationship with ourselves through coming into our hearts. And asking your hearts what what do you have to say about this, and then opening our spiritual connection and saying I need some help right now.

And you need some guidance helped me to see my next right step. It is the road less taken. And it is one that there might not always be a lot of validation on it, there will be enough, there will always support on that journey. But you have to learn to do a lot of self validation and a lot of self respect and a lot of saying, I believe in what I'm doing.

[51:16] The Power of Staying With Yourself

And so I'm just going to keep staying with myself. And ultimately, when we keep staying with ourselves, part of what we began begins to happen is we accumulate experiences over time, where we look back and say, Wow, I have made some bold choices, or I have made some choices that might not have been the easiest, but I did it anyways. And it was right for me. We began to gain respect for our journey, we began to learn that we will go the distance for ourselves that we do not give up on ourselves that we might hibernate for a while we might retreat, we might need to get out of the stream and chill for a while and retreat, as I said, retreat from everything. But we ultimately keep going we do not give up on ourselves. We just keep swimming.

You know, there's that adage and 12 Step programs, especially with sobriety one day at a time. And that's usually associated with, as I said, 12 Step stuff, but I think it applies to everybody. It applies to the journey of the heart. How do you keep staying with yourself and with your heart while you take it one day at a time? You just keep looking at what's the next right step? And what's the next right step for me now.

And what do I feel called to do today, and we keep regrouping and staying where we're at and learning to hold our own hand through things, and ultimately staying or course and not giving up on ourselves. And I believe if we do that, after a while, like we don't need to search for power, it just becomes part of who we are. Because that is a path that is really steeped in the highest integrity, and the highest coherence of sticking with your heart. And truly following the guidance there in there is no higher path. That is you being a soul on a human journey. embodying your light to the best of your ability in this current incarnation and understanding of self.

And that is so powerful. So please, if you are on that path today and whether or not you think you are, you're listening to this show, and that tells me that you care very deeply about heart wisdom, and about what is your heart magic. So you actually might be on that path and might not be giving yourself credit for it. Please own the power that there is and that your heart is your direct connection to spirit, to truth, to your higher self, to the light to everything that you need to give you your blueprint for how to live your best life to the fullest and the most authentic way that you can.

That's the Grail right there. It's in your heart. All you have to do to get there is travel from the mind. To your heart. It is the longest journey that any of us can walk. But when we began to tap into that wisdom, it is our true source of power.

[54:23] Coming Up Next Week

All right. That concludes episode 30 of your heart magic. I was really excited. I didn't plan this topic for this episode. 

If you haven't figured it out already. I love numbers. I get ridiculously excited when anytime like I hit a number with a zero after it. Like it just feels like a little milestone. I love the double digits. And 30 felt like wow, I've done 30 episodes of the show. Like I was very excited about that. That is me celebrating small steps and small wins. And I love that power was our Topic for the 30th episode just feels very in sync and very magical. 

Speaking of magic coming up next week, we are continuing our archetypes of the Tarot series. And we are moving on to the card the magician. So our episode is titled you are the magician, and we are going to be talking about the archetype of the magician. 

What does it mean? How can we see ourselves as the magicians in our own life? How can we understand our heart magic and our personal magic in a way that helps us feel a little bit more magical? And I think it's going to be a super fun episode. I'm excited to present whatever wants to come through for it. In the meantime, have an amazing week.
 
And until next time, be well be love, be you and be magic.