Part IV: What is Self-Empowerment?

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do”

~Bible, John 14:12

In this series, we have been discussing the tricky balance of attaining a space of spiritual surrender and the seeming opposite need for self-empowerment. But what does it truly mean to be Self-empowered?

On one hand, being self-empowered means that you can derive the strength to do something through your own thoughts, and is based on the belief that ultimately, you know what is best for yourself.

For me, self-empowerment means having the cohunes to claim your divine birthright as a multi-dimensional, unlimited being, a magical, mystical, miraculous co-creator and architect of your life. Rather than a victim always reacting to outside circumstances, you are acknowledging your ability to align with the divine truth of who you are and sit in the commander seat alongside Creator/Source/God, taking responsibility for your out-picturing of thoughts and feelings, understanding that they are sending these “orders” into the cosmic kitchen of the quantum field of all possibilities.

This is the beginning of getting the small self (ego) out of the driver’s seat, and allowing the larger, universal SELF to steer your ship. Even Jesus said in the Bible that the miracles he performed, were available to us also. Can you actually hold that tall order as Truth?

Of course, this may require a lot of personal and spiritual growth (aka ego work) to loosen the bonds of both the aspect of our egos that makes everything about us, and we become self-centered and myopic(I would call the inflated ego) and the opposite spectrum of the ego that tells us how unworthy we are, how we are never enough and “who am I to be spiritual, a healer, a co-creator, intuitive” etc. (aka the shrinking violet ego).

This is not about just putting a band-aid on and declaring that all is good, when underneath you are suffering and stewing. It is truly assessing what lies underneath your behavior, your choices, your outcomes, and being willing to both accept and face that shadow part of you, and to do the work to release it on the deepest levels and replace and reconnect to a higher truth and raising your vibration to a happier reality. This is where energy healing really shines to help eliminate the deeper recesses where the unseen egoic, self-destructive thoughts and feelings operate under your radar.

At one of my retreats, a student, tears streaming down her cheeks, passionately announced to the group: “If I had only one word to describe Kumari and how she has helped me, I would say it is “Empowerment.” For me, this was the highest praise, as I have not only committed to use my spiritual healing and intuitive skills to support others, but am dedicated to empower my students as I am certain that they too can develop these “spiritual gifts” of energy healing, intuition and manifesting or co-creating a happier and more abundant life.

This has been a hard won journey for me. Steeped in strict Catholicism in my youth, I had embedded deeply within me that a “good” Catholic follows the rules of obedience to church. When I met my first spiritual teacher, I immersed myself in eastern lineage and guru traditions, which opened me up to a lot of grace and amazing transmissions of spiritual energy, and also a can of worms.

While the promise of the guru or spiritual teacher to the devotees was to take you to the experience of God-realization the fastest way through the presence of an enlightened master, which I still believe is immensely powerful, there were also teachings in the ancient lineages of service and obedience to the guru as the highest path, and even that the guru took on your bad karma.

While I am not opposed to these paths per se, and I cherish the gifts I received, they did illuminate some of my tendencies to give over my power at times to others who seemed wiser and perhaps “more connected” to God or Source, while at the same time diminishing myself in comparison.

We Can Alter our Destiny

Early on in my healing career, I worked with a young woman with end stage cancer. She reported that another “well-meaning” friend said that we create our reality. This thought created tremendous pain and guilt for her as she cried: “How could I possibly do this to my self and family?”

While at first blush this can be how it feels when in an extreme situation, the knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes should not be discouraging, because it also means that we can alter our destiny. This can even include at times our physical state of health, which is impacted immensely by our dominant emotions and thoughts. This is the promise of SELF-empowerment.

What we call our destiny is often really our character, which is made up of predominant thoughts and feelings, both ours and those we were exposed to especially early on, and that character can be changed. We are not bound only by the past, which has shaped our feelings to society, religion, race, and our own backgrounds. All this can be transformed if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can shift the outcomes provided we have the courage to dissect the elements that created the underlying patterns, and rechoose.

That is where our empowerment lies: the power to decide differently, to reframe something to a positive, to release outworn patterns, to claim a different perspective and rechoose our beliefs.

What will you decide to rechoose, and when?