Create the Life You Imagine ~ July 2019
The Practice: Self Worth – How do I walk the path of the Soul?
“You don’t have to go to the mountaintop and study for ninety years. You don’t have to go to the ashram and chant your brains out. You must be a good, capable, responsible, thoroughgoing human being, and that’s how you walk the sacred path. It’s not about sweat baths; it’s not about drums. It’s about doing the hard work of living every day in a responsible, caring way.”
~ Paula Gunn Allen, Native American Poet, Professor and Activist
This quote by Paula Gunn Allen is a marvelous invitation into the work of our third chakra power center. As we continue to flow from the crown down, we move out of our heart center and down into our lower triangle personality. The work of being a spiritually conscious person in the world at this level is very practical work. It requires that you allow your Soul to come into expression as you walk through the everyday experiences of your real life while holding firmly onto your awareness of your True Self. As we reenter the lower triangle with our spiritual awareness active and intact, we transform our old lower triangle patterns and bring the full presence of our Soul into action in our lives and in the world. Now we can use the gifts of our personality, the power of our mind, the richness of our feelings and the animating power of our bodies to do our work in the world.
The words associated with this third chakra power are confidence, focus, clarity, integrity and commitment. The narrow opening at the top of the third chakra is a channel that brings our unique and ephemeral Soul into focus in a human body and personality; that spark of Divine Light that emerged from the fifth chakra funnel as our true essence moved into the heart center to be surrounded and fueled with the experience of Divine Love and compassion, and is now born into this human body and human experience. Our task is to remember that our Self-Worth flows from our Soul and as long as we consciously hold that thread that connects us to our Soul and intentionally use our life energy to live into that Divine essence, we will do our Divine work in this lifetime. If I continue to flow from the crown down, even as I move from my spiritual heart and into action in my human life, I maintain that sense of clarity, connection, wholeness, and integrity, and I am committed to moving into action from this grounded sense of Presence.
Too often, however, we move through our life not from the confidence of our Soul, but from the insecurity of our small self. The insecure ego stands behind a fortress of identity attachments and defenses.The small self will always overidentify with its roles and achievements, and thus feel like it is grasping for worthiness by seeking approval and admiration from others, or proving its worthiness through its resume, financial statement, accomplishments, acquisitions and other ordinary world successes. But in the inexorable process of satisfying the small self and pleasing the crowd, we risk losing our connection to that Divine thread and forgetting who we really are. You don’t have to look very far for examples of people that are wildly successful by the world’s standards and yet are miserable to the point of despair in a life that feels vacant and devoid of real meaning. So this is the slippery part about moving from the level of our Soul down into the lower triangle. We risk activating our small self patterns and shadow personality habits that can derail our ability to live with a sense of Divine Presence. It takes third chakra focus and awareness to maintain our connection with our Soul, and we have to be willing to grab that thread like a lifeline and move back up to the heart center to get rebalanced and to begin again, whenever we get tripped up in the lower triangle patterns.
As we move into our lower triangle, we also have to pay attention to the personality types associated with our human bodies. Our bodies are hard-wired with personality traits that I think are particularly suited to the lessons we came to learn and the purpose we came to fulfill. Understanding your personality type can help you see the strengths you bring to life that help you activate your Soul expression, as well as the shadow patterns that will get you stuck.
As a yellow personality I know that I have a very strong and active mind. I am intellectually curious and analytic by nature, quick to see patterns, responsible as a leader and always looking ahead for strategic solutions to life’s vexing problems. The shadow side of these gifts is its sometimes difficult to be present in the moment, to engage from my heart as well as my head, and to balance my needs against my instinctual pull to understand and solve all the problems I see and anticipate around me, especially for those I love.
Green personalities are intuitive and insightful about people and bring a keen sense of awareness about the emotional patterns moving around them as they make their way through the world. They lead with their hearts with creativity, spontaneity and passion, have a natural affinity for spiritual awareness and frequently remind us of the higher angels of our being. The shadow side of these gifts is the possibility of getting overwhelmed by the deep emotional awareness they bring to life, discouraged with the disconnectedness they sense and feel and frustrated when life shows up in ways that contradict their hopes and dreams for a better world.
Orange personalities are deeply committed to creating kind and caring relationships that support the people they love and the communities they serve. They are steadfastly devoted to their families, dedicated and loyal to their friends and organizations, get joy from making other people happy, and are skillful at teaming with others to achieve shared goals. The shadow side of these gifts is the danger of creating co-dependent relationships with others, sacrificing their own needs or desires in a way that is unhealthy for their own growth and development, or failing to speak their truth out of fear of creating disharmony or conflict.
Red personalities are doers and activators. They see what needs to be done and they move into action. They are practical and productive and focus on getting the job done without distraction or drama. They are steady and methodical in their approach to life and offer dependability, stability and protection to those in their circle of care and responsibility. The shadow side of these gifts is that they may ignore their own emotional lives or the emotional needs of others, may get caught up in achieving and acquiring at the sacrifice of connection, and may forget that in getting the job done, sometimes it’s the “how” that matters.
Make no mistake, our lower triangle patterns and personality shadows are compelling and seductive. Most people spend the first half of their lives completely unconscious of their Soul and reenacting these old debilitating patterns over and over again. Our early life experiences form emotional patterns that create negative or limiting beliefs about ourselves that are reinforced by repetition, and most of us have disempowering stories planted deep into our cellular memory. These core emotional patterns and belief systems are easily reactivated and most of us find all sorts of willing volunteers to play in the old storylines with us as we continue to recreate the same stories over and over again. Your disapproving father becomes your disapproving boss; Your overpowering sibling becomes your co-worker who doesn’t respect you. Your emotionally unavailable mother becomes your emotionally distant spouse. Your history of abuse creates an opening of vulnerability to the next abuser.
Many people have deep traumas planted in their cells and it can be really hard to learn to live outside of the trauma. It’s like the simple experiment with the fruit flies. If you raise fruit flies in a jar with a lid they become accustomed to the limitations of the space over time. After they get comfortable inside the jar, you can remove the lid and the fruit flies will continue to fly inside the confined space of the jar. They have no experience living outside the jar and seem unaware of the open sky above them. Like the fruit files, if we have only lived life inside our small self patterns and limiting beliefs, it’s difficult to imagine any other reality, much less to live our lives outside those confining life patterns. But when we flow from the crown down we move into life with the awareness, wisdom and power that comes from our Soul, and in every moment of our life we have the choice to move out of our jar and into the sky.
The power of the third chakra when we flow from the crown down is our ability to choose what we believe and to refocus our life from the perspective of our Soul. A belief is just a thought that is true for you. Beliefs help us organize our lives, manage our emotions and direct our actions. Beliefs create footholds for us in what is often a busy and chaotic world, and they have the power to imprison us or to liberate us. We can use our good analytical minds to notice and assess the beliefs that are directing our lives. If we look deeply, we are likely to find some old beliefs and patterns that came from our early life experiences, from our small self thinking, or from the shadow side of our personalities, and we will need to decide whether those beliefs and patterns really serve us if our purpose is to express the truth of our Soul.
As you activate your third chakra awareness, consider for a minute that the messes in your life are actually your messages—they point you to the places in your life that may offer the most important lessons you need to learn to live outside the jar of your limited personality and into the expansive energy of your Soul. Because our shadow patterns and limiting stories are often unconscious and outside of our everyday awareness, we can just look for the places in our lives that are causing drama or distress. If we are willing to look deeply underneath those patterns, we may find the limiting thoughts and beliefs that are perpetuating our most challenging life patterns. We can use our third chakra awareness to pull out of the old patterns by using our mind to identify, sort and analyze the negative emotions and limiting beliefs that are getting us caught in the toxic lower triangle patterns.
If we hold onto that thread that connects our awareness to our Soul, we can access our fourth chakra compassion to remember that the small self lives inside its small self truths as a shelter from the world and creates a set of beliefs to anchor itself inside that feeling of safety. These beliefs are like small safe jars that keep us separated, comparing ourselves, judging each other and warring against each other inside these very small truths that are the best our scared and insecure small self can come up with. These small self truths provide an illusion of safety and security and protection because inside this little jar I know who I am and I know who you are—but inevitably life breaks through. Our small self jars cannot protect us from loss, injury, illness, aging or death. In some way, the world of human experience breaks through and exposes the illusion of our small self jar. It is during these breakthrough moments that we have the opportunity to notice that there is no lid on the jar and we can breakout into a freer and more expansive way of living.
When we remember to live from our crown down, we are challenged to live and move and grow inside the safe embrace of the cosmic Mystery. Inside that Mystery, we don’t quite know who we are and we certainly don’t know who you are and we cultivate a healthy sense of humility for that Mystery and our place inside it. This big Truth calls us into the experience of life with the confidence that if we get outside the jar we can grow into our Divine DNA and we can allow others to do the same. If we don’t have beliefs or truths that are big enough to call us into that kind of humility and that kind of authentic vulnerability, then we can only live inside the confining space of the small self. Our Soul, our True Self, knows Truth with a capital T. This is the Truth that flows from our Soul and it is this Truth that our Soul invites us to live into. It is bigger than our human awareness, it is beyond our full capacity to know or understand, and it calls us into our fullness through the process of growth, expansion and evolution.
Beliefs have enormous power to change your experiences and to change your reality, but you need to choose them carefully. Whether you had a terrific childhood or a traumatic one, we all have picked up some problematic patterns or toxic beliefs from the inevitable clash between our small self and the world. But the great and breaking news that comes from activating the power of our third chakra, is that with awareness comes our opportunity to choose. In the light of the third chakra, we find the confidence to stand in clear space and to bring the truest parts of ourselves into expression. This confidence allows us to face our vulnerability even when our small self ego is terrified of standing unarmed and unprotected. This confidence calls us to live with authenticity and patience knowing that in the process of living into bigger spaces we will have to practice, adjust, retreat, advance, step back, and begin again. This confidence allows us to be aware of our gifts and our gaps, our strengths and our needs, our competencies and our challenges, without shrinking back from the opportunity that life affords us to grow and learn and evolve.
When we shift our awareness to our Soul and hold onto that thread with confidence, our experience of life changes. The gifts of the Soul are connection, consciousness, creativity and compassion. When we draw those qualities down into our life and anchor them with confidence through our beliefs and actions, we take the lid off the jar and risk flying out, and then anything is possible. The great Sufi poet, Rumi, asked, “Why do you stay in prison when the door is wide open?” You can use your power of awareness to take the lid off your jar, to fly into the sky and to experience life from a new perspective. Once you have that new perspective, you have the task of living into that bigger Truth as a good, capable, responsible, thoroughgoing human being. That is the focus our third chakra can bring to our lives and this is the orientation that puts us on the sacred path that we are each immensely worthy to tread.
Wishing you the blessings and light of the Soul, as you create the life you imagine.
Tracy
Stepping Stones:
When I share this level of awareness with my coaching clients, sometimes they seem surprised that we can choose what to believe. But this choosing is critical third chakra work. You can use the power of choice to identify and release old debilitating and limiting beliefs that are the lingering legacy of the small self and to choose beliefs that flow from your upper triangle Soul. If you let yourself choose some higher vibration Truth from the level of your Soul, you will discover a whole new set of beliefs by which to organize your life. Once you identify some new beliefs, you need to write them down and repeat them to yourself often enough to plant these new markers into the neural network of your brain and body and to reorganize the cellular memories and stories of your past.
This week have the confidence to look at the parts of your life that feel messy, uncomfortable or distressing. With the compassion of the heart center and the focused awareness of your third chakra, examine the patterns of thoughts, feelings and actions and ask yourself the following questions:
What belief am I hanging onto that is stealing my joy or making life feel small?
When and how did I form this belief?
Am I willing to let this belief go and create some new ones?
If I let this belief go, what might shift or change in my life?
Now choose a new belief statement that might free you from the old pattern. Here are a few good third chakra affirmations for you to consider:
I express my authentic Self through my choices and actions. I use my awareness to release old patterns and to stand up for my best Self.
I am strong and confident and know that my life is always supported. I am worthy of love, care, kindness, and respect from myself and from others. I am responsible for my own life and free to choose what is best for me in any situation.
To inspire you this week, click below to find Kate singing In This Very Room to help you return to your heart center. In the heart center there is always quite enough love and quite enough power. Let this energy fill your meditation practice and your week.You might use it in the background during the breathing meditation, by going to the Products Page on my website and just scroll down to the Transcendence CD and click the track. Both of Kate's CD's are available for purchase on that page.
