Stepping into Power
Let’s talk about power — a controversial word often connected to power games, power plays, and the misuse of power. Most of the time, what comes to mind when we mention the word "power" is interpersonal power — the power between individuals, states, and sexes. But what about personal power?
In April, we explore personal power as a phenomenon — what it is, where we find it, how we give it away or leak it, and how we reclaim it.
Why is it important? Because, dear one, your personal power is the key that unlocks the door to your very own treasury — the space that holds everything you have ever wanted.
What is the definition of power?
For a long time, the accumulation of wealth and possessions has been part of the measuring stick when it comes to power — a viewpoint that, over time, has deeply influenced the way we dream and set intentions. It has led us to look towards gain and control as markers of feeling powerful — regardless of the personal cost.
From a spiritual perspective, however, power comes directly from spirit, flowing through your essence, your soul, and your imagination. It is nurtured and supported by elements and energies far greater than yourself: nature, the Earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars.
Success, from a spiritual point of view, also takes on a different meaning. Successfully navigating inner patterns or past traumas, or handling a difficult situation with grace, is a powerful example of how strength is cultivated through a spiritual lens.
In the spirit world, the human idea of power as being linked to measurable accomplishments — influence, money, degrees, notoriety, fame, and attention — is nothing but an illusion. When life throws us curveballs, our perception of reality is brought to a checkpoint.
In the shamanic tradition, as well as many other spiritual paths, your true power is not tied to anything you can lose. You can lose your money, belongings, home, reputation, relationships, physical abilities, even your health.
But you can never lose the parts of yourself that are part of the essence of who you are: your experiences, wisdom, talents, and dreams. These are yours and yours alone, and they form your personal power base.
You can never truly lose anything outside yourself — only witness the fading of what was never truly you to begin with.
The power of responsibility
This ultimately means that another person can never truly give or take away your power, as your power is uniquely linked to your own qualities. Other people can only serve as a mirror, reflecting how we show up for ourselves and our own power, or where we might be leaking it.
Oftentimes, the only way we learn to find our power is through painful experiences. Many of these lessons arrive after we have ignored our intuition for too long. It can be deeply painful to lose relationships, jobs or health, or to see friends or family drift away when we need them the most. Such experiences can leave us with a lingering sense of betrayal and a loss of faith in humanity that stays with us for a long time.
However, the same situations can also hold the potential to reframe pain into life lessons that offer valuable insights into the power dynamics in our lives. Perhaps the situation is showing us that it’s time to let go of certain things or relationships, serving as a reminder to release whatever is out of balance.
Sometimes, the hardest balance to find is the one that comes with taking responsibility for our own beautiful, soulful selves. But it’s when we begin to acknowledge that we may be treating ourselves worse than we would a family member, friend or colleague, that we also start to take responsibility for our power leaks and course-correct to achieve a better balance of power in our future lives.
After all, when you strip away the nostalgia tied to the experiences that formed a relationship bond, ask yourself: is it truly worth your one, precious life to remain in imbalanced situations or relationships?
You Are the Key to Open the Door
Ultimately, this means that acceptance or attention from others does not build power. The key to accessing the power within you is to stop seeking it outside yourself. You will only be disappointed time and again if you live under the illusion that power arises from external sources.
It also means that we can welcome hardships in our lives as profound teachings of power. When things like loss, betrayal, hurt, and pain come our way, we can choose to embrace the lessons of power that accompany them— even if we did not choose the event itself.
When we have the courage to show up for the teaching, we are simultaneously given a tremendous opportunity to open ourselves to power and access the amazing landscape of grace, love, and beauty that comes with it.
Power as Balance
Nature always seeks balance, sometimes in brutal ways. Storms, fires, and tidal waves destroy and leave the land barren. Offspring are eaten the moment they enter the world.
But as human beings, we have a hard time accepting the circle of life as part of the balance in our own lives. When we experience loss, we feel the pain of letting go and the fear of change. We also feel the piercing pain of our own illusions and expectations crushing. The mental house of cards we have built for the future trajectory of our lives suddenly shatters to the ground. For a time, it leaves us barren before we find the courage to build again. This is when power can come through and enter our lives.
This is the time when we are forced to abandon the reins of control we normally use to navigate life and feel secure. And there, in the midst of our despair, power can find us because we are open to letting it in. We are vulnerable, but at the same time, we are in need. This is when we experiment with new ways, find new habits, open ourselves to new rituals, and look for new opportunities. Maybe we return to something we left behind — a forgotten talent, a favourite outdoor activity, or a book that changed our lives. Or we find a new appetite for things we never tried before or always dreamed of doing.
Cultivating our personal power is a lifelong practice, especially in modern Western societies that praise power in the form of money, fame, and prestige. In this case, the work is even more important.
When we see through the spiritual lens of power, where no one can truly give or take away your power because it is related to your personal power base, we can ask ourselves new questions about the power dynamics in our lives. We can take new measures and steps toward balance in ourselves, our relationships, and our lives.
I will tell you this: Life is strong. Life is power. And the fact that you are here, that you are alive and breathing in this very moment, is proof of the being of power that you are.
In times of loss, despair, and in moments of feeling powerless, go back to building your power base. Go back to the essence of who you are: your experiences, your wisdom, your talents, your dreams, and intentions. This is your medicine to welcome power back into your life.
Blessings of Power,
Sidsel Solmer Eriksen, Founding Editor
4 ways to cultivate personal power.
When we start to see through the lens of power the shamanic or spiritual way — where no one can truly give or take away your power, as it is rooted in your spirit, experiences, wisdom, medicine, talents, dreams, and intentions — we begin to ask new questions about the power dynamics in our lives. We can take fresh steps toward restoring balance within ourselves, in our relationships, and in the way we live.
Here is some inspiration to get you started:
Balance your scales.
When considering a power balance between people or worldly things, always ask yourself: what is the trade? That friend you always show up for — you listen to their complaints, offer support — but they can’t show up for you. Is that really worth your time and energy? That job that gives you money and status, but drains your health and steals your passion — is it truly worthy of your precious life force?When we set aside the idea of worth being tied solely to money and instead relate it to our personal power base, we begin to see things more clearly. Sometimes, the price we pay is far too high for what we receive in return.
Forgive
Forgiveness is not about accepting the things that have harmed you or impacted your life in painful ways. The true power of forgiveness lies in creating space for something better to grow where pain once lived.When you forgive yourself and others for the things you’re still holding on to, you release a burden that weighs you down. The debt carried by not forgiving is a significant power leak — one that keeps you from moving forward and reclaiming the power trapped in your reactions.
As long as you’re holding yourself or someone else hostage to old wounds and past behaviours, you’re not available for the expansion of power — the kind that has the potential to turn even those painful experiences into miracles and magic.
It’s not an easy task. Forgiveness can take a year, a minute, or a lifetime. Sometimes, pain becomes like an old friend we don’t know how to say goodbye to — simply because it’s been with us for so long, and we no longer know who we are without it.
Grieve. Cry. But let life in again. You owe it to yourself.
Nourish Your Soul
Your soul is your unique DNA strand — the golden thread — and it deserves to be treated with the utmost care. When we speak harshly to ourselves or fail to honour the preciousness of who we are, we unintentionally injure the soul.Taking time to nourish your soul is not a luxury reserved for a few; it is a birthright for everyone. Slowing down, practising mindfulness, reading poetry, playing, or engaging in a creative process are all beautiful ways to connect with the wisdom and power of the soul.
If you need some inspiration to get started, visit the Soul Vitamins section and draw a card for a dose of daily insight.
Play and practise your own power frequency
Think of yourself as a unique golden string in the instrument of life. If the whole creation is a beautiful symphony, then your individual life is a single, sacred string that vibrates in its own way. You have your own tone, your own rhythm, your own strum.When we experience a loss of power, it’s often because we’ve strayed too far from our own string of life — and we need to take the necessary steps to return. In other words, practise you. Do things that come from your essence, not from someone else’s expectations. Use your words, your colours, your expressions, your unique way of seeing and describing what the world needs.
Institutions teach us to imitate and reproduce one another. Personal power invites us to play with life and create something truly our own. Come back to your divine humanity. You are not a machine.
Practising you is your birthright — and the greatest gift you can offer the world.
Reclaim Your Lost Parts of Power
In shamanic tradition, when we experience trauma, heartbreak, or prolonged stress, it’s believed that parts of the soul can fragment or hide away to protect us — a process known as soul loss. Soul retrieval is the sacred practice of calling these lost parts back home. While traditional soul retrieval is often guided by a shaman in ritual, there are everyday ways we can begin this journey ourselves. Tending to places where we abandoned ourselves, reconnecting with childhood joys, speaking our truth, honouring our grief, and reclaiming our voice are all acts of soul retrieval. It may look like dancing in your living room to a song that once lit you up, painting with no purpose, writing letters to — or from — your younger self, or simply resting when the world tells you to push. Each time you choose presence over performance, gentleness over judgement, you’re inviting a part of your soul back into the warmth of your being.
I personally wrote a children’s book simply to recall lost parts of myself through the medicine of story and connection. That process led me to an important message about the power I had forgotten along the way — and showed me where to find it and how to retrieve it again.
What soul parts might be waiting for you to call them back? And what have you forgotten along the way?
I’d love to hear from you — feel free to share any insights in the comments below.