Watch out for energy drains today. There is always something that needs your attention, but you don’t always have to give it. You can decide to pull in your energy from what calls or beckons and stay contained for one day. In so doing you will pull back your energy for better use within yourself, to do something important and nurturing for yourself alone. It’s not selfish to be self-caring, to take care of yourself for one day; it’s actually a really good thing to do.
The shamans of Carlos Castaneda’s lineage place a high value on people and circumstances that cause us to be offended, what they call the petty tyrants in our lives.
Being offended identifies areas of self-importance, the greatest tax on our energy while living in human form.
Self-importance is not self-worth. We can have a strong knowing of our worth and still not be offended by the inconsiderate actions of others. Self-importance is an ego defense of its inherent worth that becomes incensed when it is not appropriated the respect it feels is due. We all suffer this to some extent at various times in life.
Spiritual growth requires that we retrieve our vital energy from the petty tyrants in our lives to be able to more fully actualize our spiritual potential. When we free up our energy from being offended, we can experience a vastly broader reality than victimhood.
Shamans view petty tyrants as gifts to our evolution, if we can use encounters with them as opportunities to lose our self-importance. The first step in losing self-importance is to identify the petty tyrants in our life.
These days, the world is filled with petty tyrants, especially in governance. Every day, vast amounts of offended energy is spent through emotions of rage and defeat, emotions that can largely define the mood and flow of our entire lives. Releasing ourselves from being offended by truly offensive behaviors is a tremendous boon to our energy stores.
If we can acknowledge to ourselves that someone’s behavior and attitudes are inappropriate, but that perseverating about them is overwhelming our lives, we can simply choose to detach our attention from fixating upon them. As we withdraw our attention from them they disappear from our purview and thus our energy stores are preserved.
Sometimes, however, we may be held in check by someone’s deviousness. This might require that we take some constructive action to protect ourselves, although often we must accept the limitation imposed upon us, until things can change. The trick is not to be offended but, in a detached way, to minimize the energy spent managing the situation.
We can tell ourselves that a circumstance isn’t personal, but the truth is it may be quite personally directed at us. We can tell ourselves to be compassionate toward a flawed human being, but the truth is we might feel no compassion for the ruthless tyrant.
The gift of the petty tyrant is that, in order to successfully surmount it, we must fully lose our self-importance, without feeling bad about it.
To be able to say to the self, “I am being treated like I am a nothing,” without spending any energy feeling insulted by it, enables a clarity on how to respond, which might include not doing anything but simply allowing the karma of the behavior to resolve the issue in its own time. It’s not about retribution; it’s about energetic efficiency.
Of course, on an inner level, taking command of the suggestions we affirmatively deliver to our subconscious mind raises our vibration toward the highest vibration of love.
Regardless of what strategy we follow to navigate the petty tyrant, with positive intent we remain inwardly bathed in love and appreciation for life. At some level, such gratitude will extend to the petty tyrant, who has offered us the opportunity to hone and refine our energy, opening up worlds of possibility.
Ironically, we will eventually discover that the greatest petty tyrant of all resides within the self. Just notice the continual stream of judgments delivered from the habit of internal dialogue. The judgments are about everything and everyone, but most substantially, they are about every aspect of our own not-good-enough, entitled self!
Sometimes the petty tyrant within is experienced in habits that hold us hostage and keep us defeated in life. The opportunity presented to us in this instance is to assume responsibility for the habit, a kink we have consciously colluded with in order to remain fixated at a familiar feeling of being.
Don’t fight with a petty tyrant; to do so is to attach. Feel gratitude for the depth of challenge and consciousness it has brought to you, to truly know thyself.
Finally, achieve untetheredhood, the freedom to journey beyond, because the tethered grounding of self-importance has served its purpose. Get ready to launch now.
Certain days have more energy than others and you may notice how one day may bring drastic actions and the next none at all. Such is the law of karma, the law of entropy, and the law of change. Let your own energy dictate to you what is right to do on any given day. Check in with yourself to see how you are feeling and how much energy you have to give to others. Check in with yourself to see if you need something that you are not attending to for yourself as well. Oftentimes, the givers are the ones who most need but refuse to admit it. Take time for yourself and your own mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health today.
Pace yourself. Watch your energy. Make use of the breath to reinvigorate and re-energize throughout the day. Pacing allows for calm assessment and study of how you use your energy, where it goes and whether for good or for waste. Good use of energy involves honing your desires, your creativity, and your enthusiasm into the best use of the energy you have on hand, while also encouraging new energy to form. Eat and sleep well. Take time to be in nature, the best of all healers. And sometimes, just sit in the sun. It will do you good.
Maintain balance in all you do so that your body, mind and spirit are in balance as well. Make decisions based on whether something is right for you, whether it will keep you in balance, or at least not take you too far off so that it is difficult to reset. Sometimes the body says no in dramatic ways and sometimes its communications are more subtle. Get to know your body so you are aware of how it communicates to you on a daily basis. To maintain balance is to offer yourself a smooth ride through life, with enough energy to do the things that really matter to you. For when you are engaged in something that you are passionate about you might notice that you have all the energy in the world. And, thus, you learn what it really means to be in good balance.
