How exactly do we step into our sacred sovereignty?

It takes courage and commitment. It takes practice. It takes a companion. It also requires the belief that you are worth the investment.

Scroll down for my time-tested teachings and tools I offer in spiritual coaching.

Slow down, do less, and rest more.

It’s hard to access our sacred sovereignty when we’re running around busy and breathless. Tuning into our invisible world requires that we slow down, so that we can shift from living a reactive and habitual life to an authentic and intentional one. It creates spaciousness, so that we are able to move through life and work with more ease, enjoyment and purpose. It also allows us the capacity and ability to listen deeply to what’s beneath all the busyness—and tend to it. These are the moments that change us.

When we do less and settle into being, we discover what really gives us meaning, brings us joy and sets our hearts on fire. We begin to realize our worth is not wrapped up in what we produce or achieve, but in our wellbeing. Your wellbeing matters. 

When we rest more, we let our body and soul catch up; our nervous system relax and digest everything it consumes from our overstimulated world. We reset our reserves on overflow. More rest also makes us more awake. More alive. More present. Everything tastes more delicious. We see more vividly, think more clearly, heal more quickly, act more compassionately, dream more daringly. Rest time becomes play time for our sovereign Self! See related article.

PLACES TO START

• The everyday stuff. When starting to slow down, start small. If you’re a fast-talker or live with one, slow down your speech. If you’re a cardio-junkie, that’s great, perhaps add a more mindful movement like yoga or walking. If you’re one to run yellow lights, try yielding. If you busy your mind in the morning by scrolling social media, consider giving yourself the first hour with no screens. If you work nonstop sitting at a computer, set an alarm for a 10-minute stretch break every two hours. These small, everyday acts create more space between your words and strides, between your keystrokes, destinations and breaths. This space allows you to move through life with more ease, purpose and enjoyment. It’s also in these spaces that your sovereignty emerges. See related article.

• Setting boundaries. Learning to say no can be hard, especially when we’re wired to say yes, and the people in our lives expect it. Often we don’t even know our boundaries until we’ve crossed them. Even when we do identify what we need, it can be difficult to request it, make room for it, or feel like we deserve it. In spiritual coaching, we’ll explore why you say yes and how to say no. This boundary-setting will allow you to name and claim what you want and need.

• Redefine rest. Rest is way more than sleeping and doing nothing (though these are lovely and necessary). Rest is anything that relaxes and rejuvenates you. Rest to your mind could be a walk in a nearby park. Rest to your heart could be an afternoon of binging your favorite feel-good show. Rest to your body could be a visit to a somatic therapist. Rest from the all the heartbreaking news could be reading a romance novel or this week’s astrology forecast. Rest from your daily routine could be a roadtrip. Rest allows us to be more awake. To feel more alive. See related article.

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Be here now.

The present moment is the safest place to be. It’s also the lightest and wisest. We spend most of our time in our heads somewhere in the past or in the future. Replaying an old record of should'ves. Or worried sick about a future that isn’t here yet. It creates panic and pain. It’s exhausting carrying all that around all the time. When we practice being in the present moment, we let go of everything but now. It can feel light and liberating. In that space, we start to remember we are safe. Try it: Right here, right now, are you safe? We can then begin to let our fear and pain step back and relax, so that our sovereign Self can lead the way.

When we tune into the now, we have access to everything: not just our mind, but our body, heart, and soul, to surrounding nature and the infinite cosmos, to that spiritualicious energy that connects us to all living things, to everything that ever was and ever will be, to eternity.

WAYS TO PRACTICE THE PRESENT MOMENT

• Connect with your breath. In many faith traditions and cultures, the word for breath is synonmous with spirit. To connect with your breath is to connect with your spiritual source. The more attention and intenion we give it, the more we can access is full life-giving power. Download my 10-minute Breath Meditation now. See related article.

• Tap into your senses: What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you see? What do you taste? What do you physically feel? Choose one of your senses and focus on it for five minutes. See related article.

• Body scan meditation. Find a comfortable posture. Close your eyes. Start either at the top or bottom of your body. Then slowly scan your entire body noticing any places that feel tense, or tender, or out of the ordinary. Acknowledge these places without judgment. Your job is to witness your body and practice noticing physical sensations, and the wisdom they carry.

• Spend time in nature. The birds love you. The mountains love you. The soil, sea and sky love you. Nature is medicine. Simply being in it, heals. Moving our bodies in nature helps us get out of our heads, and into a more expansive, grounded space (literally). If we consciously relax our minds, and notice our surroundings, we can begin to align with that eternal, Sovereign place in us.

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Turn your gaze inward.

For those of us heart-wired for spiritual quests, we seek out divine inspiration anywhere we can. In faraway lands, foreign faiths and mysterious gurus, with tarot cards and astrology, with podcasts, memoirs, memes and Instagram influencers, and the list goes on! I love these quests! And they certainly aid us in our spiritual awakenings. But too often we forget to look inside ourselves for divine inspiration. We forget that Spirit also lives in us, as us. Each of us is a one-of-a-kind wonder. The keeper, curator, midwife to a unique unfolding of the universe. It’s all happening inside us! Right now! 

Inside each of us is a vast, complex, invisible world. We contain thoughts, feelings, and personas; memories, trauma, and a dreamlife; ancestral lineages, cultural conditioning, and karmic contracts, energy that is eternal. All of it has a sacred story to reveal. Our job in spiritual coaching is bearing witness to it. See related article.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR INTERNAL LIFE

• You are whole. We are not just one thing; we are large and contradictory. We are badasses and couch potatoes; we are brilliant and we are beginners; we are reflective and we are reactive; we are liberated and we are limited; we are our past and our future. We contain multitudes. These many parts are exactly what make us whole and human. All of it is holy.

• You are not your thoughts. And every thought you think is not true. How do you discern truth from fiction inside your head? Any thought that belittles you or criticizes you is not coming from your Sovereign self. It’s coming from a childhood wound, or cultural conditioning, or more recent trauma. It’s part of a larger history that needs to be acknowledged, and healed.

• Everything belongs. Every thought you think, every feeling you feel, every character you embody is welcomed in spiritual coaching. The Perfectionist and People-Pleaser are welcomed. The anxiety, fear and despair are welcomed. The stories of I’m not enough, I’m not worthy, I’m all alone, are welcomed. The inner critic and outer critic, both welcomed. Our work is not to avoid or remove or resist what shows up in you. It’s to witness it with reverence, curiosity and compassion.

• You know best. You are wise, creative, and resourceful. Only you have access to your internal life and the vision it contains: the images and memories that flash in your mind, the sensations you feel in your body, the knowing that emerges from your unique depths. Learn to trust these real and invaluable insights. They are arriving to show you the way.

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Befriend your pain.

There is no perfect life, no life without suffering. To be human is to know both joy and grief. I myself have fallen prey to this idea that our “natural state” is blissful, light, peaceful. I do believe there is that place in us, your Sovereign self, that does move with clarity and confidence, but that doesn’t make our other parts—including our painful parts—any less holy or wise. Everything belongs. Nothing is standing in our way; it is the way.

Our pain doesn’t need to be shunned; it needs to be seen. To be acknowledged, understood, seen with eyes of compassion, curiosity and courage.

Unfortunately, our mind/ego hasn’t gotten the memo. The mind’s job is to maintain status quo, to keep things the same, so we don’t risk feeling pain or discomfort. It will do whatever it takes to keep us from harm (real or perceived), including: project, ignore, blame, judge, overthink, over-achieve, people-please, stay busy, sleep, clean, eat, yell, pick a fight, ignore a fight, find a savior, become a savior, be good, be right, be perfect, look perfect, be in control, betray ourselves, silence ourselves, make ourselves small. You name it. Our mind is creative and cunning when it comes to avoiding all sorts of pain like rejection, shame, grief, disappointment, guilt, powerlessness, humiliation and discomfort. 

The mind/ego’s intentions are good. The problem with these strategies is that it actually perpetuates and exacerbates the pain. People-pleasers will give to the extent that they feel empty and resentful; their fear of rejection has caused them to reject themselves. The overthinker wants to categorize and strategize, leaving nothing to chance; their control turned into anxiety and worry of the unknown can cost them the very passionate, unexpected life they desire.

What if … What if just beneath the pain is the very thing you seek?

Spiritual coaching invites you to see your pain as a messenger, an ally, a part of you that holds an untold story and a reclaimed future.

OVERVIEW OF THE PROCESS WE’LL PRACTICE TOGETHER

• Cultivate the Observer. Your thoughts, feelings and sensations are not you, they are parts of you. You are the space that contains them. The **Observer, the sacred Self, the true You. When we begin to see our thoughts and feelings as separate from the Self, we can begin to be in relationship with them. Converse with them. Befriend them. When we cultivate the Observer, we’re doing a few things here:

  • We’re unblending these parts from our sovereign Self. Otherwise, the parts can take over and trick us into believing we are them: like rage that consumes us can make us feel like we’re a monster; or our inner-warrior who armors up and refuses to let love in can make us think we’re cold-hearted. These parts are sacred but often stuck in old, bad behavior that no longer serve us. Unblending helps us realign them.

  • We’re learning to create a pause or a gap between the painful thought, feeling or sensation and our response to it. This is the art of mindfulness, which allows us the ability to make better choices based on our values, truth and purpose, rather than our pain.

**P.S. The Observer is your sovereign Self. Richard Schwarz, founder of the Internal Family Systems, attributes characteristics to the Self. He calls them the 8 Cs: compassion, curiosity, calm, clarity, courage, confidence, creativity, and connection. When we observe our pain with the 8 Cs, magic can happen!

• Notice what activates you. There is this idea by Eckhart Tolle that no one makes you feel anything—they reveal what’s already inside you. So, if someone or something irritates you, angers you, saddens you, it’s activating that feeling/pain in you. It’s an opportunity to learn more about yourself.

  Activations are external events that precipitate an internal discomfort. They come in all shapes and sizes—in our homes with those we love, between our neighbors, colleagues and people at the grocery story, also the media (Who here shouts at their TV or radio!?). You know you’re being activated when you say things like “This doesn’t feel right.” “How could they do that, say that?” “I feel ugly or gross.” “They’re so much better at that than me.” “Suddenly my head is aching.” “I feel like my energy is being drained.”

  Did you notice any activations today? There is transformative power in our noticing and naming our activations.

• Take a U-turn. Often we get caught up in the story of the external event: Some people love to give a very long, drawn out play by play. This leaves us stuck at the surface, and distracts us from going deeper to discover what’s at the heart of the activation. It’s essential to train ourselves to redirect our energy from the external event and direct it toward ourselves. It’s like learning to say, “Oh, I am feeling activated! Here’s a chance to go within.” The activation then becomes an invitation for you to travel into your internal world, to begin to understand the untold histories and hidden treasures awaiting you.

• Make mind-heart-body connection. When you are activated, there is this holy trinity that happens. Your mind, heart and body each have their own response to the event. The mind quickly creates a story or belief, then a feeling emerges either in response to the event directly or to the story/belief you have about it, and then a physical sensation appears in your body. Making this connection helps us become familiar with the particular wound it’s activating, and provides us more holistic insight.

• Turn toward curiosity and compassion. Learning to soften toward our painful parts with curiosity and compassion can be tough when the thought or feeling appears to be so abhorrent, so annoying, so exhausting. There is zero shame and zero blame with this befriending process. No matter what appears you are 100% loveable. "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there” (Rumi). Your sovereign Self is that benevolent field. Here are a few technique we use in spiritual coaching to locate that soft spot:

  • Imagine these thoughts and feelings as if they were an actual child or coming from a child, perhaps even your own inner child. How would you respond to them then? This becomes an act of reparenting yourself.

  • Imagine these painful parts as partners or allies trying to protect you. What do they want to tell you? What are they afraid will happen if they stop protecing you? How might you show your appreciation for them?

  • When the mind starts to spin-out, overanalyze, and set painful stories on repeat, it can be particularly challening getting its attention. (Again, the mind is trying to protect you from pain, but instead perpetuates it.) In those moments, turn toward your mind and firmly, yet gently say “I see you. I know you’re trying to protect me, but I’ve got this. You can relax now.”

The techniques almost always start to create the space needed to tap into your sovereign Self that is curious and compassionate and ready to lead with love.

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Heal seven generations.

Ancient spirituality teaches us that who we are and what we do today impacts seven generations future. I believe we also impact seven generations past. Our family’s blood runs through our veins. We breathe the same air as our ancestors. We are connected to a story that came before us and will continue beyond us. Somewhere there exists a place beyond time, beyond space, where we share one mind, one heart, one body, one story.  

Sometime during my rock-bottom years, I felt this overwhelming sense that my healing was not mine alone. It touched my mother, and grandmother, and her mother; and all the lives they touched. Stephi Wagner, founder of Mother Wound Project, says “Pain travels through families until someone is ready to feel it.” My mother continues to be a wounded woman, but seeing her pain set free in me sets us all free. Astrologer Chani Nicholas, writes, “When you heal yourself, you heal for your entire family line.” 

Your healing matters. When I look around at the anguish in our world, this is the thing that gives me hope above all else. When you see yourself with sacred eyes, you begin to see those around you with those same eyes of curiosity and compassion. That in turn allows them to begin to see themselves with sacred eyes. And so on, and so on, and so on. One person at a time, walls fall, hearts open, love wins.  

Your awakening to your sovereign Self may seem too small a task to heal the magnitude of hurt we see in the world, but honestly, I think it’s the only thing that has.

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