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Aloha and welcome to your Heart Magic, an illuminating space where psychology, spirituality and heart wisdom meet. Here's your host, dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright, author, psychologist and spiritual educator. Aloha everybody.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 0:35

Welcome to your Heart Magic. This is Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright and it is Leo season. So we are talking about the archetype of Leo today and continuing our archetypes of the Zodiac series, which has been so enjoyable to create and to share with everybody, and I love talking about Leo. I am a Leo, my birthday is at the end of the month and Leo has a special place in my heart. And, speaking of hearts, that is a great jumping off point to talk about the archetype of Leo, because Leo is all about the heart. It is all about listening to our heart and finding strength of heart, creativity of heart, following our passions and allowing that very inspirational energy that asks us to be bold and a little bit audacious and to really embody the energy of self-belief. To step into that more fully.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 1:36

I want to share a passage today from Small Pearls, big Wisdom that emb embody some of the characteristics of the archetype of Leo and help set the tone. This is passage number eight and it is called first, value yourself. If you want others to take you seriously, you must take yourself seriously. If you want others to respect you, you must respect yourself. If you want others to value you and value the gifts of your heart you choose to share. You must first value yourself. We can't delegate responsibility for determining our worth to others. Our worth is ours to claim, and if we devalue ourselves, how much do we truly expect others to value what we treat so carelessly? Each of us is worth great love and great value, and that work of worth starts within. Don't know where to start with learning to value yourself. Make a commitment today to sit quietly with yourself for two to five minutes. Start by saying hello, I see you, I am listening, I am here. Help me see myself through the eyes of my heart today. Then allow your heart to guide you from there.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 3:01

To me, what is the best of the archetype of Leo is this very strong exhortation to value and to respect ourself. Leo is the lion of the zodiac. It embodies the characteristics of strength and dignity, respect, pride, leadership, allowing ourselves to roar in our own way and in our own time, and allowing ourselves to shine. Leo is connected to sun as the planet, and so the sun is about I am. It's the self, and it is all about finding our light and finding the places that we glow, finding what lights us up and allowing that to come through. There's a lightness to the archetype of Leo. That really asks us to shake off some of the watery feels of cancer season, to get out of the deep part of the sea. Cancer is about going into our emotions and our intuition and our psyche and our inner world. And Leo says come on out to the shore, come, stand in the sun and allow your light to shine. It is a shift in energy from where we've just been and it invites us to be bold and to step into the spotlight in our lives and to believe in ourselves and to trade self-doubt, our questions of self, our fears that we have and instead just make bold steps in our life to align with the essence of self-belief and self-confidence. Leo is a beautiful sign to help us fake it until we make it and to find our ability to be more audacious and more courageous in our own life.

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The shadow side of Leo and, as we've talked about, all archetypes have both a light side and a shadow side when they're out of balance, and so the shadow side of Leo can be access. Leos are renowned for liking beautiful, luxurious, glittery things. I am not sure that that holds true for all leos, but I think that royalty and that royal lioness energy often brings in the association of riches and royalty, and so leos have this reputation for liking beautiful things. So excess can be a shadow side of that. Pride can be associated with Leo when it gets really out of whack and having a lot of ego, elevating oneself above others, roaring so loud that you forget that other people deserve to roar too. But, as we've talked about on your Heart Magic so much, we're not really focusing on the shadow of any archetype. It's good to know that it's there and it's good to know that all of us have tendencies towards some of these shadow qualities in any archetype that we're working with. But we are really focusing on how to bring the best of Leo, the most balanced part of Leo, into our inner worlds and use that to inspire us to live with more greatness and more confidence and more faith of heart.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 6:14

And, as that passage that I read said first value yourself. And that is something that Leo is excellent at doing when we're working with this archetype. It helps us value ourself. It helps us find creative courage and step into the spotlight wherever we feel called in our life. Leo asked us to look at where we feel we have gifts and talents and abilities, where we've done our work, how we want to show up in the world and to see the value in that and to believe that it's enough, that we don't have to prove anything, we don't have to hustle for our worth.

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I can't imagine a lion running around and shouting I am the best, look at me. They just do their thing and know their place and know their divinity, know their nobility, know their strength, know their prowess. And we are invited to do the same when we're truly embodying whatever speaks to us, whatever our gifts, talents, whatever our creative courage is, whatever's in our heart. We don't need to prove anything. It just is and we can bring that to the table and know that it's enough and find ways to spotlight that in our life. And sometimes we're called to do that in ways that we might be asked to step out into the public eye or do something where we are putting an offering out there or speaking up in a way that we are being seen. It might happen in a quieter way for some of us and in a way that we are just asked to take ownership of a gift or a talent and take ownership of something and shift our mindset and start seeing ourselves differently and carrying ourselves differently and holding ourselves differently. So there's a lot of ways that this essence can come through, but there is a lot of encouragement right now to think about. What are you creating in your life right now? Where might you be called to spotlight your gifts or your talents, your artistic ability, your inner nobility, your strength, your dignity, your character, your creative courage, and how are you being asked to work with that during Leo season? And what would a tangible action step be right now that you could take?

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 8:36

Something else that Leo does really beautifully is. It inspires us to tap into our inner strength and our inner nobility. And, as we talked about Leos, don't run around hustling for their worth. That's like the prideful shadow stuff that is the Leo out of balance and that's not really Leo and balance and the best of the archetype, the best of the archetype, is just knowing not only that we are enough, but knowing that we have what we need inside of us. We have the creativity and the courage of heart. We have the life experience. We have the inner strength to move through whatever challenges, whatever obstacles. Strength to move through whatever challenges, whatever obstacles, whatever is coming up in our path.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 9:23

Leo invites us to hold ourself with dignity, to hold ourself with nobility, to get in touch with our soul sovereignty and to get in touch with the inner divinity inside of us and to see ourselves through the eyes of love, through the eyes of the heart, and to really see that spark of spirit, that spark of the divine that each of us has inside of ourselves, and to acknowledge and rest very soundly in our authenticity, our right to be here, our innate belonging, our creativity of being and the essence of who we are, and again, to carry ourselves in a way that we feel assured of our being and assured of that nobility. So Leo asked us to get a little bit royal and to find ways to bring that through in our life. And that would be a really fun journaling prompt for Leo season is how could you see yourself through the eyes of nobility? How could you be more royal this month? How could you be the king or the queen or the princess or the prince or whatever title you want to put? You could make up your own title in your own life. You could have a lot of fun with this journaling prompt and be playful in it, but also take it seriously in the sense of how are you being invited to carry yourself right now as a creature of worth and a creature of value, and what might that look like? And notice if you stand a little straighter or sit a little taller or breathe a little bit easier, or where you might feel that in your body. When you think about being noble, when you think about getting in touch with your inner strength, what color represents those things to you? All of those are excellent prompts to work with that very lioness energy.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 11:15

Last, leo invites us to step into a leadership role in our lives and into anything that we're being called to lead, and so Leo asks us to find the places that we are being called to speak up, to lead in some capacity, to take ownership in a bigger way and to step forward with boldness. And this could be something where you are just going to take the lead in your own life on something you've been trying to shift or change. This could be something internal, where you are going to step into a leadership role and self-organize in a way or move a goal in your life forward and see if you can move the needle a little bit this month through being a leader in your own life. This might be something that intersects with an opportunity or something that you are asked to do or asked to step into, or a role you've taken on, or a new task that involves others, and you want to step into that archetype of being the leader and just see, if not me, then who? So it might as well be me and I am going to step confidently into this, whether or not I fully feel confident.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 12:30

Most of the time when we are called to do something new, to step into a role, we don't feel entirely confident, not unless we're a veteran at it and we've done it many times before. Even then, we can still go through feeling nervous or having self-doubt, but most of the time when we are doing something, we are asked to just believe in ourselves and believe that if somebody else can do this, I can do this too, and I have to trust that I'll have what I need in the given moment to rise to the occasion, and to rise to the occasion of my own life and my own greatness and my own strength and my nobility, my gifts, my talents, my creative heart and all of those beautiful Leo qualities. So I want to close today with one more passage from Small Pearl's Big Wisdom, and this is passage 14. It is called so Noble and Significant. Noble and significant.

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You have nothing to prove to anyone, no status quo to meet and no responsibility towards being what others think you should be.

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However, you do have a responsibility to yourself to be yourself. You are the only one who can become an expert on your being. You are the only one who can take the reins of your change and steer yourself in a new direction or choose to find contentment exactly where you're at. The choice is up to you. The knowledge is yours. To find your inner voice of truth is something only you can tap into. This is your sacred responsibility and accountability. This is the light you are called to understand and shine in the world the untarnished, unvarnished, authentic act of naming yourself, claiming yourself and then finding the courage to be yourself. And there is absolutely no one except you who can accomplish so noble and significant a task. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I will be back next week with an all new episode. In the meantime, happy Leo season to everybody. Have a beautiful week and, as always, be well, be love, be you and be magic.

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You've been listening to your Heart Magic with Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright. Tune in next week for a new episode to support and empower your light.