Stepping Stones

Activating Your Inner Powers - Week Two

Passion vs. Purgatory

The Tin Man represents the second power that we need to claim on our hero’s journey—the energy of our passion—our vital life energy. The second chakra is the home of our passions and feelings about life. Our passions and feelings are part of our internal guidance system and are critical to our success in walking our path. When we can harness the passion of the second chakra, we use our feelings for guidance and for inner awareness as we make our way through life.

But the Tin Man also shows us the shadow side of the second chakra—the danger of getting overwhelmed and paralyzed by our emotions. The second chakra is where we have stored all of our past emotional disappointments, wounds and traumas with other people. If we get lost in these old stories, we create a purgatory in our second chakra where we repetitively re-live the emotional patterns of our past and find ourselves unable to find the path out of them. We become locked up like the Tin Man, paralyzed and stuck in the grip of our disempowering emotions.

In the Oz story the Tin Man is found rigid and motionless, paralyzed by the tears and experiences of his past. As Dorothy oils and lubricates his joints, paying attention to all the frozen parts, the Tin Man re-enters the flow of life and is able to walk the yellow brick road of his journey. He learns to manage his emotions while keeping his heart open. Likewise, we must pay attention to the rigid and frozen stories in our past and spend time loosening and lubricating our old wounds. Healing our past will help us to harness the passion of the second chakra and to avoid the purgatory of emotional stories and traumas that stop us from moving fluidly and flexibly though our life journey.

Weekly Stepping Stones

What parts of your life activate positive feelings or passion? How do unresolved feelings about past experiences or traumas interrupt or dampen your passion about life? Can you identify important lessons you have learned or ways that you have grown from difficult past experiences? Who are the people in your life that activate your passions and support you in living life with an open heart? If you let go of the pain of your past, what might open up for you in your life?