Shakti

In Sanskrit, Shakti is power of transformation, our natural feminine power.  Shakti is ancient energy and the feminine face of the Divine.  To evoke her name is to heed the call to awaken.  

Every time we create something, we are giving birth to something new in the world.  We are all creative in some way.  To deny it is to insult the gift.  The empowerment is physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. Shakti Empowerment is when you speak the truth, act from truth, and standing up for what you believe; to believe so fully in Self that you know your worthiness and deservedness.  Shakti Empowerment is when you trust your Inner Voice and Inner Knowing and have a strong sense of why you are here and what you should be doing.  It is when you act and react from spirit and feed on affirmations, when you give invocations for guidance and realize you are worthy of receiving it.  Shakti Empowerment if when all you do is formed first in the heart and soul and learn the lessons of how to transform grief to joy, sadness to joy, and right feelings for right things.  All of us are receivers of such gifts and all we have to do is to begin applying these things in and of our life.  

Shakti Empowerment  is a personal power to have no fear or limitations on what it is we wish to do, and what we might desire.  Our energy would be focused directly on what we want and need rather than what we did not have or did not need in our lives.  It is Present and Future focused.  When we have Shakti Self-Empowerment,  we remain clear about what it is that we must do and how we might do it.  There is no space for over thinking.  We will become such pure, unselfish, clarity that we know what is needed of us and what we can expect.  We will learn to turn anger and fear and all the negative emotions into energy to move forward and become more mature souls.  We would love ourselves so dearly that we do not need others to affirm or love us.  We need to love ourselves so much that we know our eternal reasons for being here at all.  There would be a cloak of love so comforting that we do not need to manipulate or put on dramatic airs in order to get attention in all the wrong ways.  Self-respect and Self-esteem would be drawn into our knowing and we would not need anything or anyone else to affirm or determine what we are worth.

When we take control of ourselves, we lose the need to be controlled by others.  When we look at patterns in our life, when we see the challenges that return again and again (Same old!  Same old!) we can know what things we might need to change about ourselves..things to transform.  

Then, there are the same old, same old, thoughts we have that we need to take control over.  Sometimes we tend to solidify thoughts that do us no good service.  We say things like, "Well, that is just me!' or "that is just how I am!", as if to give ourselves an excuse for those kinds of thoughts.  An example of this might be, "I am blunt, I say what I think!" and then we solidify that it is okay to hurt other people's feelings or say unkind things, or find ourselves being pushed away by those who we are too sharp with.  It still does not make it okay.

So often we put ourselves down with the same kind of self-talk.  We spend times justifying our negative self-talk with "that is just the way it is", as if we do not need to change our self-talk patterns.  We spend so much time on "what ifs" and "if onlys" that we miss 'what is'.  That is not self-love.  When we do not love ourselves, we tend to fall into the habit of being around those who think the same way of us that we think of ourselves.

Transformation is always tough but not as tough as not changing.  We owe it to ourselves, to others, to Creator, to change as all things do, but taking spiritual and soulful look deep inside ourselves to really be a gift to the world.  We are strong, courageous women, admit it.  Here we are.  We made it this far.  

We might be stuck, but that can be changed more easily than staying stuck is.  So many of us stay in our shadow selves, living shadow lives.  We need to reclaim who we were meant to be.  When we are walking on the good road (in my case, The Good Red Road).  We need to be authentically who we were meant to be, to be the person we were sent to be.  In a conference, in Grand rapids, we were3 told that we were the answer to ancients prayers.  That really impacted me and though, sometimes I am weak, I have progressed more towards being that gift to the world.  Oh, sister-friends, do not betray yourselves.  Do the things that transform you, do art, dance, garden, whatever creative thing it is that lets your beautiful soul shine through.  Awaken to your own personal beautiful power.  

Let us embrace each other, share a wing, and let us transform into that peace and grace and dignity we crave.  Let us not be the negative connotation of women that society would whisper of us; let us not be weak; let us not be over-emotional; let us not be powerless, let us not be over sensitive (my huge thing to rise above); let us not be co-dependent; let us not be victims to ourselves or others; let us not be oppressed; let us not be owned by anyone other than ourselves.  Let us reach for our full potential.  We have no idea who we are, at the end of it, or why we are here, so we must follow our shakti instinct and reawaken those things that we were meant to be, meant to have, meant to serve.   
Let us be tender, compassionate, creative, changed, within ourselves and for ourselves, so we might be so to others.  We are not here for ourselves, surely.  We are here to make a difference in the world by being here.  I pray for this every morning "Let me do what I must do today"...and, at night, I thank Creator for the opportunity of having been here and that I might rest so I can be what I am supposed to be tomorrow."  This I can do.  This you can do too!

©Carol Desjarlais 6.1.19