Stepping into your power

I came across a fascinating article today by Steve Pavlina titled: The Lightworker Syndrome. In it he explains how lightworkers (by which read healers, coaches, consultants, psychics, intuitives, artistic and creative people) feel that they can't make money doing what they love and so feel that they have to make money doing stuff that they don't like in order to pay the bills, keep a roof over their heads. Ultimately they begin to feel so dissatisfied that they yearn to go back to the non physical.

Well, this situation is very familiar to me and many lightworkers, a lot of whom struggle to make a good living from their chosen profession/vocation.

Steve Pavlina suggests that the reason that they have such difficulty is because they are frightened of stepping into their own power because it means more clients, more responsibility, more visibility and success starts to feel overwhelming. What Steve doesn't fully address is WHY ultimately many lightworkers are frightened to step into their own power.

Ultimately, this comes down to that old chestnut; feeling safe. It doesn't feel safe to step into and own their power and ultimately, their success. I believe that many lightworkers have an ancient fear of speaking their truth, being authentic and owning their power because they've been criticised and punished for it in the past. Cultural beliefs, events that happened in childhood have led them to believe that it is dangerous for them to be and express their power.

And looking over things with a broader historical perspective, people perceived as sensitives, intuitives and healers HAVE often been persecuted. So it makes sense that they should be reluctant to embrace their inner light and power. Until these beliefs, held within their energy field are cleared out, then they will have a hard time embracing their power.

Interestingly enough, those highly sensitive people (not always lightworkers, but often so) who do not embrace and own their power are, by default, blocking it. And this comes out in different ways which includes:

• envy and jealousy over others who seemed to have more than they do; (especially those in the same field);
• deep sense of anger and injustice;
• depression (which is de-pressed power)

Rebecca Marina, EFT Specialist, held a teleclass titled: Charge What You're Worth. It was aimed at lightworkers who undercharge for their services, thinking that it wasn't spiritual to charge too much money. One caller was just starting out as a hypnotherapist and her prices were slightly higher than her colleagues. They started to criticise her and said that potential clients in their area wouldn't pay her prices. Rebecca Marina's response to the caller was to keep away from those colleagues.

And she was right.

What was really going on was that they couldn't bear to see someone raise their prices because it was symbolically stating to them that they were selling themselves short. It reminds me of crabs in a barrel, the minute one crab starts to climb out of the barrel, the others try to pull it back. Spiritual or not, the minute it is perceived that your survival is threatened, spirituality seems to go out of the window and fear, desperation and negativity can come in.

Carol Look, EFT Therapist, uses incisive questions to determine why people don't feel safe enough to embrace their power. Some questions are:

• What is the downside of being successful?(being overwhelmed, less time, more stress, more responsibility, no support?)
• Who will be annoyed/peeved/angry at your success? (perceiving peer group disapproval is a great dampener on dreams and aspirations)
• Who will have higher expectations of you? (Can success be sustained?)

EFT is a great way to start working on the answers to those questions energetically and removing the energetic blocks that prevent lightworkers stepping into their own power. Reiki and other energy therapies are very efficient at bringing those beliefs and emotions to the surface where they can be released.

People who have (subconsciously) blocked their own power, need to get their power and energy from others, hence energy vampires, but that's another story.................................

Your Greater Intelligence - listening to your body

One of the downsides of western society is its complete dependence on so called "rationality" and the mind and the downplaying, if not derision, of emotions and the body.

Many answers to issues that we face are solved by listening to our body. The body has a greater intelligence than our mind. It has an ancient wisdom that we ignore at our peril. It tries to tell us where we are going wrong and where we are not being true to ourselves and when we are.

This morning, I spoke up and said something to a family member that needed to be said. He didn't like it (neither did another family member) and responded with the expected denials, resistance, deliberate misinterpretation of what I was saying; it was a knee jerk response based on feeling that his fear that his sense of survival and safety was being threatened. (See my previous post: How Safe Are You?)

Needed to clear the air

But it was something I needed to say to clear the air; it was well overdue. I've been avoiding saying it for ages, going round in circles because I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but in the end my body couldn't take it any more.

I'd been getting the warning signs from my body for some time; I'd been feeling less alive, less dynamic, less focused than normal. I began to feel really heavy in my body. I started gaining weight which no amount of diet or exercise could shift. I began to feel that there was some energy vampirism going on. But what was happening was that I was stuffing down my true feelings in and all of this energy was taking the form of weight gain. I only find this out when I started asking myself questions.

In the EFT Specialty Series II, Stephen Daniel, who specialises in using EFT, amongst other energy therapies, for chronic illness (cancer, CFS for eg) said that:

"When you can't say no or set boundaries, your body will do it for you"

And that is exactly what was happening to me. Because I wasn't opening my mouth (and in fact it didn't feel safe for me to do so, which has a history all of its own) my body packed on the pounds as a form of protection. And this method of energetic protection is actually quite common among highly sensitive people.

Often highly sensitive people, being more emotionally attuned, sense the real truth about a situation. They often take on the emotional processing of emotions which other people cannot deal with within themselves, being emotionally disassociative.

Now I'm the only (and youngest) female sibling with three elder brothers, so you can imagine that I was processing all the stuff that couldn't be talked about, because it either wasn't consciously recognized or if it was, was too threatening to be spoken about honestly and openly without fear, hesitation or judgement.

However, this tendency can often lead a highly sensitive person to pay a very high price in the form of a variety of illnesses (CFS, Depression for eg) as the body seeks to find expression for those blocked and repressed emotions. There is a certain deadness around, a lack of power and focus.

What does this have to do with allowing abundance?

Simple.

When you are not in the flow, when there are energy blocks, deadening your sense of power and aliveness. Fear, resentment, anxiety; all of these block your abundance. Abundance in its myriad forms cannot come to you; there are too many obstacles. Once you start releasing those blocks at an energetic level, you clear the way for all of the good stuff in life to come flowing in. Money is energy and if you are blocked energetically - how can it come to you?

If some of those issues are family of origin issues (and they are all family of origin issues!), it may feel unsafe to deal with them.

But one of the many genius aspects of EFT is the ability to neutralize the more painful feelings, so that you can begin to create a sense of safety for yourself.