Stepping into your power means feeling and depressing your spiritual, mental, and physical sovereignty. It means evolving on your own path according to your true will while cleaning up the shame hidden in your personal shadow.

Teacher of shamanism, John Moore, talks about following your own path, true spiritual love, and shame. What kind of world would we live in if nobody was held back by fear from being who they were truly meant to be?

Announcer 0:27

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:46

Hello, everybody.

It has been a little while. It's been a few weeks since I've recorded one of these podcasts. I've been busy with summer activities. It is, you know, not sure what it's like when or when you're listening to this, but it's we're full on summertime here in the great state of Maine, in the United States. And I yeah, it's been, it's been a little busy, which is great. I like to be busy. I'm not the kind of person who likes a lot, a whole lot of downtime, although it's necessary once in a while to recharge your batteries. So. But I have been spending some time in nature and spending some time with loved ones and working on some stuff, some upcoming stuff that should be well, it's exciting to me, I hope it's exciting to all of you as well. I just want to welcome you once again, this is speaking spirit and to talk about something today that is well as always very near and dear to my heart. But this is something that I have a place a great deal of emphasis on. Excuse me, before I begin, I will tell you that I'm experiencing seasonal allergies. And I do not edit these podcasts. So you may hear me clear my throat or cough or sneeze or something and I apologize ahead of time, but we're having there's a lot of pollen in the air right now and having a little bit of an allergy situation, but it's nothing I can't handle. And I'm going to have a sip of a warm drink at the moment. Very good. But I will keep going and I'll keep pressing on. But the topic I'm going to talk about today is about is I call stepping into your power. And this is something that I always always when I when I see clients when I have clients and they do work with clients as a shamanic practitioner, shamanic healer. And I also work with clients, as a mentor, I work as a teacher and as a coach. And when I do that, this is the number one thing that I work on. Yes, there may be, there may be some other things that I work on that are the main focus of a session or that sort of thing. But everything I do, is really focused on helping people step into their power. So I'm going to talk about what that means. I'm going to talk about some things that have to happen before you can truly step into your power. And I'm going to talk about some of the things, some of the, you know, the not important but some of the things that hold us back from really stepping into our power. So what do I mean by stepping into one's own power? What do I mean by stepping into your power? Well, you know, there's a few aspects to this. But stepping into your power is really about, number one, recognizing that you are a powerful being connected to divinity. No different than any other being that exists or has ever other has ever existed. There is a piece of divinity that is the core of who you are. And it is pure, it is unaffected by your life story, your life conditions by your physical health by anything. So you are an emanation of divinity. Okay, so you are, for lack of a better term, a piece of God an emanation of God or the universe. If you don't like using the word god or goddess or What have you, I like God and Goddess, because I think there are, you know, when you know beyond the Unity things show up in divine masculine and divine feminine forms. So, one part of this is recognizing that and recognizing that you are worthy, and at your core, unbroken, perfect and whole, just as you are. And when you live from that place, when you live from that place, you recognize a sense of personal sovereignty.

And I'm going to tell you what that means, I always try to define my terms, not because I'm trying to get you to adopt my definitions of words, or that my way of looking at things is better than anybody else's, or whatever, just so that you understand what I'm talking about. Because, um, you know, whether English is your first language or not, English is tricky. Because it can be very vague at times, and words can have very different meanings. And I like to talk about the word love. And I can say, Well, I can love my children, and I can love a cheeseburger. But I, but that doesn't mean the same thing. Right? those forms of love. While there's a more subtle difference, um, there is a very big difference, there's a very big and important difference, I'm not going to eat my children, and I'm not going to tuck a cheeseburger into bed at night. So what you know, so we have to define what we mean. And I realized that in other languages, there are many, many, many words for love. And maybe we should develop that in English, maybe we should put that forward in English and try to develop some new words for love. So there's, but there's the an all in today I'll talk about, I am going to talk about what love is, from a spiritual perspective with spiritual love means and from a pure perspective, and we did a podcast on that some time ago, with my friend, Rebecca qwave. And you can go back and find that one, if you if you are really interested in the topic of love, which we all should be, we should be interested in the topic of love. sermon define what I mean by sovereignty, personal sovereignty, spiritual sovereignty. So sovereignty, to me, the way that I am using it means that I have full agency, or full choice full control over my mind, my body and my spirit. This comes with a couple of caveats, right? I obviously do not have 100% conscious control over my body, I have not meditated to the point where I can stop in my heart and restart it. But what it means is that the things that I have choice and control over, I maintain that choice and control. I don't hand those over to anybody else. I don't, I don't in you know, this might sound a little political. And it can certainly get that way. But it is my belief that no person on this earth should tell me what I can and cannot do with my body. Right. Um, that gets into some political discussions, and, and those kinds of things, and I don't want to get on that path. But I think, you know, for me to experience a full sense of sovereignty, I have to have full freedom and control over my body. That's the physical aspect. Now, I realize that some people have taken the idea of sovereignty to mean that no laws apply to them. And they can live their life however they want without regard to how it affects other people or, you know, repercussions in the world or laws or that sort of thing. Okay, that's a little bit problematic. Well, it's very problematic, right? Um, you know, there may be unjust laws that we decide not to follow or we decide to work together. Change or that sort of thing. But generally, I live in a society where other people's well being depends upon my behavior. And I have to mediate where my behavior might impact other people. So, you know, in the United States where I live, we drive on the right hand side of the road.

In other countries, you may drive on the left hand side of the road. But if I decide that laws don't apply to me, and I can drive on the left hand side of the road, I'm not going to get very far and there's a potential, I could kill myself in somebody else. So that's not really an expression of sovereignty, I'm sorry to say, I'm, if I decide for some reason, however, that the left hand side of the road is better, then I can shoot, I could choose to try to change the laws in the country, I may, who knows, I may be able to do that. And that is a way for me to express sovereignty, some level of control over what I'm doing, to try to change things. So I have to mediate that I do live in a society, I do recognize that and I don't, I don't take the physical sovereignty thing to mean, I do whatever I want in this world, I can't just go rob a bank and expect there to be you know, no repercussions for that, you know, that sort of thing. And I don't, you know, I try to live an ethical life where I try to make my actions. You know, I try to make the my actions not harm others as much as I can. We can't live life in this world with the zero impact, but I do what I can I do what I can to for the environment, I do what I can for, the community I live in, I do what I can for the country I live in, which includes disagreeing with some of the decisions that the leaders of my country make. But it doesn't mean, you know, that I take up arms against my country, necessarily. But again, you know, that would be a choice, but I would choose to deal with the repercussions of that, as well. So I but I do have, I do believe that I have agency over over my body. And I do believe that some laws that try to restrict that are are unjust, and based on puritanical, puritanical ideas, that other people, no, other people know what's best for me. But that sort of ends, where with where other people's human rights and civil rights begin. And I recognize that as well. So that's sort of the physical level of sovereignty, right? And we have, we have a body, we have a mind, we are a spirit. So, you know, sovereignty over my mental body, shall we say, means that I think the thoughts that I want, and I choose, choose, I choose to have the thoughts that I want, and I can have an you know, intellectual choice. That being said, I recognize that I am not fully in control of the thoughts and emotions that come up for me. thoughts arise, but I try to recognize when people are trying to force their opinions on me or, you know, force ideas on me and I'm going to speak, I'm gonna speak primarily about this idea today about other people enforcing their ideas on you. And this is really where the rubber hits the road, as we say, in, in the with the idea of sovereignty. Okay, the idea that people can tell you what to think or what your opinion should be, or what is good and bad, and on the emotional level. This involves a lot of shaming, to try to control people. Shame is an agency of control, or is the tool of control. And when you allow shame to control you, you're giving up your agency, you're giving up your sovereignty. So. So there's that. So spiritual sovereignty means that you, you know, you, you practice what you practice spiritually. You're not bound by, you're not bound necessarily by dogma or rules or whatever. You may follow dogma if, if it is your choice.

But dogma is a method of controlling behavior as well. Right. And there are reasons for that, you know, going back before we had separation of church and state, and a lot of places, we use religious law to control behavior, use the threat of threat of hell, and the promise of heaven or whatever equivalent is to prescribe behavior to say, you know, don't commit adultery, don't covet, don't do this, don't do that. Don't eat shellfish, don't eat, you know, don't eat this, don't eat that. And it's okay, if you follow those rules, it's okay, if you choose to follow those rules. If it's your if it's your choice, right. And originally, those rules were set up to govern behaviors to create societies. And sometimes we have to examine those things, and see if they still make sense for us. And I don't want to it is not my place, because that I'm not enforcing my ideas on you to bash any particular religious rules or anything, I'm just asking you to examine where dogma is, for dogma sake. And it can be, you know, can be totally fine. Right, I think Thou shalt not kill is a great rule, Thou shalt not steal is a great rule. I think those are great rules. You know, whether they are offensive to God or what have you, I, you know, I can't speak about that. But I think when we live in a society killing and stealing, and, you know, committing adultery and doing all kinds of things can cause caused a lot of problems. And, and so a lot of these rules are just, you know, maybe, I don't know if they're common sense, because there still is a lot of killing and stealing in the world. But you know, they're there. I think a lot of them are good, totally good and totally valid until they just but, but understanding what they are and taking responsibility for your own spirit. And so spiritual sovereignty is really about doing your own development. And there's a couple of pieces to this, right, a couple of pieces. And this is where mind and spirit overlap a little bit, right. One aspect is spiritual development, you take responsibility for your own spiritual development. And it doesn't matter if you go see a guru or you study with a teacher or you read and meditate or what have you. But you work on your spiritual development, it is a path of your choosing, not a path that somebody prescribed for you. And it doesn't matter if you you know, if you if you grew up Christian, and you want to follow that path, fantastic, do that. If you grew up Hindu or Buddhist or whatever, and you want to follow that path, because it was the path you were born into, that's great. But do your development work? You know, do do your and learn about other systems, learn about other other belief systems and that sort of thing. So this is the, you know, again, I'm talking a lot about sovereignty. And I'm gonna speak some more about stepping into your power in a bit, but this is the first step is really working towards your sovereignty. So the first part of spiritual sovereignty is doing your spiritual development. I think there should be some sort of loving kindness, compassion practice in there, because that is the that is the feminine aspect, the Divine Feminine deals with compassion and loving kindness, as well as something that's evolutionary that you know, deals with the Divine Masculine meaning. You know, I'm working, you know, tantric Lee or I'm working towards Christ consciousness or what have you in whatever spiritual system you choose or systems. I don't think you have to limit yourself to one I'll give you an example. I you know, I practice shamanism. It's my main practice. But I also work within other systems. You know, before I studied shamanism, I studied tantric Buddhism, and I still continue to practice. And I have other practices coming from other traditions. I practice, you know, some traditional systems have what some people might call magic, which is sort of

ceremonial stuff that I practice. And so, um, I don't think you have to limit yourself to, to one system as long as they play nice together. And I know plenty of people who Buddhism is a great example, I know plenty of Buddhism is one of those things where there are lots of people who are Christian, or Buddhist or Christian or Jewish, or what have you, and, and practice Buddhism as a practice. And it works nicely there. And I'm sure there are other systems that play really well together, like that. So do your development work. And that's, you know, that's an important, equally important, but often overlooked, is to do what I call in what other people call Shadow Work. In this is the criticality of this work cannot be overstated. Right. So psychoanalyst Carl Jung talked a lot about the shadow in the shadows, the parts of us that are hidden away, that are that we have rejected, that society has told us are bad, you know, it includes anything that we might feel shameful about shameful urges, all of these things, you have to work with that stuff to make it conscious. Um, you cannot, you cannot spiritually evolve without doing this work. You can gain some, you know, you can gain some spiritual power, certainly, you can practice some things and learn some things and do some cool things. If you haven't done your shadow work, you haven't cleaned that up, it is a recipe for disaster. And a really good example of that is, you know, these spiritual leaders who wind up abusing their followers, right, these people who are supposedly spiritually evolved, they are not, they might have special powers, and they might be charismatic, and they might have done a lot of work and know a lot of things. And they might be able to do a transmission of Shakti or, you know, what have you in each system. But if they are out there, you know, physically sexually financially abusing their followers. They are, their shadow has taken over their shadow haven't done their work to clean up their shadow. And they might be so blinded by spiritual light, that they don't see that they have a shadow, they might not recognize it. And that's the insidious thing about the shadow is that it is hidden from us. That's why it's called the shadow. And these are parts of us that we have exiled. Right, because somewhere along the line, we learned it was bad to have certain sexual desires or bad to want to be a singer or bad to be this or bad to be that. And so we, we push those things down bad to be angry or bad to be any of these things and we push them down. Okay, I can't look at that, because that's bad. And if I look at that, I'm gonna feel bad about myself. The work, and there's no, there's lots of ways to work with the shadow. And I believe I've done a podcast about the shadow, but I will probably do more. Because this work, I cannot understate how important this work is. And it has been a major part of my own healing journey, the work that I have done to people to sit here and speak to you, and live in, you know, quote, unquote, normal life, I don't think there's much about my life that's normal, but to live a life that I enjoy, that is full of good things and full of great relationships and, you know, doing what I love to do, and that sort of thing. My life is so different now than it was years ago before I began to Shadow Work and, um, you know, my teacher in shamanism introduced me to this shadow work that comes from tantric Buddhism. Strange enough that you know, things come full circle. And it is absolutely fantastic work that has, it is a tree that has borne much fruit, I continue to reap the rewards from rewards from that, and I continue to do Shadow Work, and I probably will for the rest of my life. Because that's how important it is to me.

So these are the aspects, these are the things that we need to think about when we think about sovereignty. Okay, and I, I want to feel bear with me for a few moments that I want to pull up a really good quote, and I should have had this ready. But it will take me Just a moment. This is something I found on social media. And or maybe I'm not gonna pull it up, but it's basically about, alright, I'm not gonna be able to pull it up. And I apologize for teasing you like that. But this is this quote basically says, Don't be the person who causes someone who used to love to sing to stop singing, or somebody who used who used to dress uniquely, to now dress plainly or who loved to do X, Y, or Z to no longer do X, Y and Z. Don't be that person. Right. And so this is a really, this is a really important thing you know, about again, about stepping into your power is about living your path on your own terms in your own way. And there's a huge amount of power there living life authentically, where you if you repress who you are, your path your core, you're never gonna live life to the fullest, and the full with full amount of power that you have. There's so much that can be unleashed. When you start to live a, I'm gonna say a ferocious life, a ferocious life, meaning just, you know, life with abandon. And again, it doesn't matter what your path is. You could be, um, you could be anything I, you know, I own almost hate to name examples, because it's gonna sound like I'm putting them down. But let's say let's say my path is to sweep up a hallway, let's say that is the thing that I love the most. And I do for work is to sweep. Right. So. So if that's the case, you know, do that with abandon do that with joy. It is not for me to define what your path is, is not for me to define what your joy is, it is not for anyone to define what your path and what your joy is. Except for you. And really, it's your job in this lifetime to find that. That is that is your reason for incarnating is to find that true path. And to live it ferociously. And maybe I'll write a book called Living ferociously. I don't know, we'll see. So my whole thing when I work with clients, and they, and they say, you know, I really feel like this is my path and this and that, I'm like, fantastic. Do that. Do it to its fullest. You know, doesn't mean you have to quit your job and sell your house and whatever, you know, start just begin. Just go down your path and do what empowers you what makes you feel joy. And so one of the things that I promised I would talk about this the one of the big things that holds people back from living their joy, and this is true, I think for all of us, at least most everybody I know and most clients I've worked with, and this has been true for me in my life is you. The fear of disapproval is so huge. And it holds people back from living their full life and I want to put this in a certain perspective. And I want to talk about sorry when an example. I don't generally I don't generally give personal any well I won't give any personal details of any client away. Ever But I will say that I have have had a client who is an an artist of some type. I won't tell you what kind of artists but this is a person who makes some kind of art. And this person is absolutely brilliant and was hemming and hawing about starting to show their art because they've gotten hate messages from other people and that sort of thing before.

And it made me really think what it made me think about was, what kind of a world would we live in, if a there weren't haters out there to tell people, your art stinks, or you're too stupid to invent something or, you know, whatever, to shame people into repressing their gifts, what kind of a world we live in. If that didn't happen, or if people ignored the haters, and just did it anyway. And I get it, I get how hard the hatred can be, I have gotten, gosh, plenty hate in my life. For almost almost everything I've ever chosen to do. That has one up being worthwhile in my life, I have gotten hate and judgment. Think about that world. Think about a world full of art, and music and invention, and everything. And think about a world in which you were completely free from shame. To do what it is you wanted to do, you want to dance, you dance, you want to, you know, become a doctor or a professor or, you know, you want to become the best street sweeper on the planet, or you want to I don't know, whatever it is. Train dogs doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what it is. But imagine if we lived in a world where that level of oppression didn't exist, we would probably live in a beautiful place. With a clean environment, full of art and music, and beautiful things and architecture, where diseases were cured. Were all kinds of things we would live it would be you know, it'd be like a utopia, basically. And that isn't to say differences between people would be wiped out. I don't think that's true. That would still exist. Where you think about, you know, you think about, you know, absolute geniuses, people who have made huge impacts on the world. You know, your Einsteins and you're Gandhi's, and you're Buddhists. And you're in your Jesus's you think about those people who really stepped out and bucked that. And you think about how many remarkable people that we never hear about that never make an impact because of fear of disapproval. And I get how strong fear of disapproval is and get it we are wired as human beings, we're wired to seek approval to seek social fitting in it is safer for us. We are tribal after all to survive. When we were all cavemen back in the day, you had to form these tight knit groups. And if you were expelled from the group, or shunned, it meant you could die. Right? And that's still wired into us that survival instinct is still hardwired into our brains. There's an area of a brain of the brain that processes social interaction. And it is strongly associated with the with an area of the brain that processes pain. So social rejection is very close to pain in our brains. So I'm stepping into your power is a little bit and I'm going to I'm going to swear a little bit and I apologize, but there's no better way to express this. Stepping into your powers about not giving a fuck about what people think, to some extent, to a great extent, right. So I remember when I was a when I was a kid, I was in I was in you know in high school. I was in I was in marching band, I played the trumpet and marching band, which, you know, in some places comes with its own stigma. We were not the popular band kids were not the popular folks, we were seen, you know, we had our own, we had our own group, and, you know, but we were seen,

you know, as some people use the phrase band and nerds, right to describe us, and I was fine with that. And there was in my school, you know, the person who leads the band in many schools is called a drum major, this is the person who stands out front and conducts the band and leads them. And I wanted to do that I wanted to be the drum major. And, um, you know, I'm like, that's really cool. I feel like I want to be a leader, I feel like I want to do this, this and that. And, you know, there were, you have to think, way to audition. And I think it was auditioning with nine other people or something like that was a number of people coming out for the spot, and only one spot. And I remember telling my father, my father is a good example of what we would refer to as toxic masculinity. And I said, Dad, I'm an audition for drum major. And he said, Isn't that gay. And by gay, he didn't mean happy. And he also didn't meet quite mean, homosexual. But he mentioned as an epithet, anyway, and growing up in growing up, in the time that I grew up in a in the late 80s, and early 90s, you know, when I was a teenager, I'm using the word gay was a way of was, in that way was considered an insult. Using it that way would still be considered an insult. But, you know, people would say, that's really homophobic, and that's wrong. And, you know, there's much more social pressure not to use that as an epithet. But it was used as an epithet to emasculate young men to say you are not masculine, you're not living up to my standards of masculinity. And there was a whole lot of pressure to be masculine, if you were labeled in masculine people might be violent towards you. You could be rejected by your peers, you could be rejected by your father. Right? And this is what he meant. Isn't that gay? Isn't that not masculine enough to be accepted by me. And that's a hard thing. You know, when you're 15 years old, as I think I was 15 When that happened, um, you know, that's a hard thing to take on your dad seeing you as less than masculine. in that age, in that day and age, it was it was, you know, it was a really, really hard thing emotionally. It was, it was a form of rejection. We've come a long way, not 100%. Since then, to say, you know, gay is not an insult. You know, it's not it's, it's, you know, being gay is not necessarily masculine or masculine, or what have you, it is your sexual identity. And, and, you know, it just is what it is what it is, and we're far more accepting. Now, I talked to my children a lot about this, about how we have a long way to come with accepting people as they are. But we have come a long way in my lifetime, a really long way in my lifetime. And, and we need to keep pushing that because people do need to stand in their own power. And that means having control over their identity and not feeling shamed for who they are, whether that's masculine or feminine, or masculine or non binary, or, or anything, whatever people are, they need to not feel shame about that. So anyway, my dad was trying to dissuade me from something he felt was in masculine but I ignored him and I'm glad I did, because I auditioned. I auditioned It was a very challenging audition involved,

you know, musical tasks and doing some marching and commanding, marching and involved an interview and looking at my grades and all of these things. To become sort of a peer leader, a student leader, and I made it I made it I made it through the audition, I was selected. And it was one of the best experiences of my life. I got to lead my band in a national parade for Independence Day in the capital of the country, Washington DC. And we won, we won an award for it. I later auditioned and made it into a touring band, and I got to spend my the summer that I was 17 touring Europe as the drum major for this, you know, this touring band was pretty amazing stuff. And if I had been all, you know, if I had taken on that shame, and allowed it to stop me from doing what I really wanted to do, um, I would have missed out on some of the most wonderful experiences I could have possibly had in high school. And so this is my mission, my mission in life as I want people to have those wonderful experiences, to develop and live those wonderful lives and do what they do, what they are meant to do. What empowers them. And it doesn't matter what it is, I, I, you know, I don't, it doesn't you know, unless it harms other people, I don't really, it doesn't really matter to me what that is, I want you to be good at it. So shame. Shame is a very toxic feeling. The most toxic and destructive emotion you can feel. Shame is really horrible. It does terrible things to people. It causes mental illness, it causes it can cause physical illness, it can it can cause soul loss. So shame works on many levels. And it really reduces who we are as as human beings. And we all have, you know, we all feel shame because we live in, in cultures that enforce rules on us that tell us that we're bad or broken or wrong. If we love certain things or behave certain ways or identify in certain ways. destructive, it's really destructive, we should you know, if I can move us past shame and shame is contagious. Right to people who feel shame, a significant amount of shame tend to shame others. So, you know, famous studies show that people who are homophobic have tend to have strong closeted sexual feelings towards same sex. Right. So there are a lot of homophobic people out there who have strong feelings for you know, strong gay feelings. And they feel so shameful about that they're projecting that shame onto other people. And who knows, like, you know, my, my, if my dad was really comfortable in his masculinity, what difference would it make if I became a drum major or did anything for that matter? shaming people does not come from a stance of confidence. It comes from a lack of confidence. This is where you know things like toxic masculinity come into play. Right? toxic masculinity and I think we need a different word for it because it is in masculine. This whole macho, bullshit stuff. I'm gonna swear again, sorry. Maybe I shouldn't apologize about swearing. Maybe that's, you know, maybe that's something that's definitely something I was taught I should not do or I was bad growing up. Don't say these, you know, there's a list of seven words I can't say. Because if I do it makes me a bad person. Silly. It's pretty silly when you think about it. But

this macho bullshit is not masculine at all. It is weakness, that is afraid of finding out that it's weakness. It is a sense of lack of confidence in one's masculinity. If you are the most masculine I don't know. I don't know how you would measure this the most masculine man on the planet and you stand in full confidence. You would not care you will not have a care in the world how anybody else shows up in the world or behaves. You'd be so confident in yourself You could, you could care less, if somebody was you considered less masculine, you probably wouldn't even judge them as less masculine. Right, because you would be standing in full power, you will be standing there in full confidence in who you are, there would be absolutely zero need to shame anyone else, or even have the thought that that that a person was less than. And that is really standing in your power to have that confidence that you don't have to shame anyone else on the planet, no reason for it. This is different. Again, I've got to call this out, because I'm making some very extreme examples and that sort of thing. This is different than setting boundaries around behavior. Right? So I may be fully confident in who I am. And I may not accept certain behavior of people towards me that violates a boundary. Right? Just because I'm confident who I am. And I don't judge other people, I'm not going to become a doormat and allow people to steal from me or harm me in some way. Right? Or, say things to me that I don't think are are, you know, I will call people out if they try to shame me for sure. That'll happen every time. And part of that is I'm you know, I'm not fully developed. I'm not I'm not standing here saying I'm better than anybody else. I'm not, absolutely not. I have my work to do I continue to do my work, I probably will. The rest of this incarnation and maybe many, maybe maybe many incarnations after that. Who knows? We all got work to do. I am not the Buddha. Not yet. There is a Buddha nature inside of me. There's a Buddha nature inside all of you or a Christ Consciousness inside all of you, or Shakti and Shiva or whatever phrase you want to call it for your divine nature, there is that. But am I completely in alignment with that body, mind and spirit? No. And that's fine. I'm okay with that I've got my work to do. And I will continue to do that. And not out of a sense of shame, but out of a sense of wanting to be better and to make the world better. So I very rarely say don't do this, don't do that. But today, I'm gonna say this. Don't shame other people. I know it's a habit. I know. It is a you know, it's something that we have learned because it is a method of control that we use to keep the social order in place. Don't do it be a force of love. And so when I talk about love, in this case, again, I'm gonna define my term. And once again, it's a weird word in English, I can love a cheeseburger, I can love my kids, I can love my lover, my girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, whatever. But, you know, it's let's talk about pure spiritual love. Pure spiritual love is about one thing, and it is about acceptance. Another word for that is approval. When I say I love you, from a spiritual perspective,

it means that I accept who you are at your core. I accept you as a divine being, regardless of your appearance, identity, behavior, any of that external stuff. I fully accept you. And this is where it can be tricky to express divine love. But this means that even if I were looking at a serial killer I would accept them as an expression of divinity. Even as I hoard their behavior, even the people who have hurt me deeply done violent acts against me, stolen from me, tried to harm me in many different ways. I still accept them as, as people who are expressions of divinity. And so that is, that is an expression of love, I love the person, I don't necessarily have great feelings about some of the behavior. But that's different. That's a different thing. And so one way to become more loving and more accepting is to not wish harm on people for one thing, but to start to see everything and everybody as an expression of divinity, as expression of spiritual purity as an expression of nature, the universe, God, whatever name you want to give to it. And even if you are an atheist and a spiritual, not sure why you'd be listening to this podcast, but totally fine, I accept and love you for who you are. Even if even if that is you can find a way to do this, you can find a way to say, this person, this human being who has thoughts and feelings and fears and hopes and prayers and whatever. Even though you know, this is a human being and just by virtue of being alive and existing on this planet, I have to extend some level of human respect and kindness towards that, that person. And well, they have been perverted to the nth degree. Every great spiritual condition, tradition, not conditioned, every great spiritual tradition teaches this exact thing. In Greek, the word is a gobby love, right, this this pure, this pure, accepting love and that is used in Christianity. I do not know of a spiritual tradition that does not teach this at some level. And yes, I understand there are significant perversions of this in every spiritual tradition. None of them is immune from ignoring this, and treating other human beings as less than as outsiders. As shameful. So one way of stepping into our power is to give up, shame, as best you can. It's hard, we all feel that we all have shame. Everybody has a shame complex. You cannot have lived in this world without it. Ever everybody has that, but you can address it. What is holding you back. And if it is fear of being shamed, you have to give yourself that love and acceptance. You got to do that anyway. You have to come to the place. Where if you're, I forget who said this, but maybe the Dalai Lama, I don't know. But if your circle of compassion, if the people you feel compassion for does not include yourself, then your circle is broken and incomplete.

So well, I would love it. If you would start to show love, pure spiritual love and compassion towards other people. You need to direct that at yourself as well. And that's just as important. So you can practice on other people. Right Practice, practice showing them love and compassion. Practice being happy for people when something good happens to them, and loving and accepting them when something not so great happens to them. Recognize when you're feeling jealousy, recognize when you want to shame somebody else. Don't pretend you don't have that desire, because I certainly do. I certainly have that desire. And I don't think you don't have that desire. Recognize when that comes up in you, and understand what that's about, that it's conditioning from generations and generations and generations of shame, using shame as a method of control. So you can start with other people, sometimes that's easier. Recognize when that comes up, recognize when shame holds you back. Recognize when fear of disapproval, which is ultimately shame comes up and give yourself love and permission. Give yourself permission to be disapproved of, you know, when I think back to most of my the great experiences in my life, I had to buck against disapproval from somebody, be it my dad, or my peers? or what have you. The best the greatest experiences in my life, you know, came out of doing something that many other people would shame me for or disapprove of, or what have you doing this podcast. So anytime you put yourself out in the world and what a world we live in, we gather haters, you cannot I have, you know, I watch a lot of spiritual talks and things over YouTube. And YouTube comments are full of hatred. They're full of shame. Anybody who puts themselves out there and just says, Hey, this is you know, I'm going to share something with you. You're going to get backlash, because people have been conditioned into this hatred into the shaming behavior. It makes them feel better because they're projecting their their crap, it's part of their shadow. They're taking the crap that's inside of them and projecting it onto other people. And Gosh, do we do that we do that a loss. See that everywhere. The internet has been an Awakener for me about how this plays in the world that amplifies all of this stuff. It gives people who it gives people a platform for a lot of things, there's you know, and the internet's not good or bad. It's a tool to use it to shame and you know, hate on people and that sort of thing. That's not so great. But if you use it to share and uplift, and gather information and become happier, and live in this world, and connect with people, connect with your tribe, find people who want what you want, do what you do, you know, gather together form a movement, do it in a good way, please realize there's some pretty negative movements out there. You know. But if you're moving in, in a positive direction that's uplifting and empowering and makes you happy, makes you happier. Find your tribe Connect. Honestly, we can change the world this way. I fully believe this. This is the movement that I want to be part of this is the movement that I want to start. It's a movement about love. It's a movement about the pure love of accepting others for who they are, and uplifting people's dreams. You want to be an author and write a novel. Fantastic. How can I help you? How can I approve of you?

You want to paint, you want to dance? You want to sing? You want to make things. You want to start a business. You want to cook you want to raise a family and on a homestead. How can I approve of you? How can I support you so that you can do that and be fulfilled? And that the things holding you back? are not my shadow crap coming up and trying to push you down under and trying to drown you in shame? How can I do that? So that you can step into your power so For me, my personal thing is I've got to, I've got to a become more loving, and I something I work on every day. I have to love more. I have to accept more. I want to so have to is a tough, tough race. I want to I want to do this. I want to love more, I want to become more loving, I want to give up unloving thoughts. When unloving thoughts come up. I recognize them as something in myself that needs to be worked on. That's the shadow material. I'm being triggered by somebody's behavior. Am I triggered? I mean, having a disproportionate response to somebody's behavior? Yes, if somebody is causing me actual harm, I will have a response to that should be proportionate. Right? It would be nice to live from a state of equanimity, right? where nothing really affects me. There's a, I guess, a god in. In Japan fudo mu, which is, you know, I think is translated as unmovable mind. Right? Or the unmovable one, somebody who sits in meditations, sort of ferocious looking guy who sits in meditation and cannot be moved by anything. It'd be nice, it's hard. It's hard, I would think to get to that stage, but we can move towards it. So stepping into your power, recognizing that sovereignty, recognizing your path and moving on it, despite the shame complex that comes up. We should all work on the outside influences, right? We should all work on being less shaming and more accepting and more loving. But we can't change everybody. We can try. We can be the change in the world, we can be the change we want to see in the world, right? As Gandhi said, Be the change. We can be this loving, accepting, reducing shame, the shame level in the world. And honestly, I don't think anything would move us more towards creating a better place to live for our children and our grandchildren. And all of those things. So this is you know, this is, again, I feel very passionate about this topic. I'm going to be talking more about this I'm going to be writing a lot of stuff about this. So if you if you're interested this in this topic at all, you know, check out my website I'm at Main ma i n e shaman, sh a m a n.com. subscribe to my newsletter, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, all of those things. This is this is my mission in life is to help people step into their own power. Reduce shame in the world and increase love. Without I will leave you I love you all and I mean that. Not in a romantic way. I'm sorry. I'm taken. But I love you all and accept you for who you are. You're whole complete, divine and unbroken at your very core. And no matter what anybody says nobody can affect that or take that away from you. It is permanent. It is forever and ever and ever.

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to MaineShaman.com that's maineshaman.com