Caroline Myss’s Sacred Power: Self Esteem and the Power of Choice
Self-esteem is misrepresented, according to Caroline Myss, leading expert in medical intuition, energy medicine, human consciousness, and higher living. “To esteem the self means to recognize what the power of your soul is,” she says.
Myss’s new Gaia series “Sacred Power,” takes viewers on a journey into how self-esteem and the power of choice profoundly impact the development of our soul and our ability to live wholly.
Self Esteem and the Power of Your Soul
Myss looks beyond the first layer of what we normally associate with self-esteem to the deeper, core ingredients: intuitive clarity and trust in oneself. As opposed to being something that gains us attention, self-esteem at its highest purpose is quiet, self-contained, liberates us from seeking others’ approval, and sustains our health and well-being.
The strength that comes from developing a healthy self-esteem, in which we rely on our values and personal sense of integrity, help us to create a resiliency that is, as Myss says, “unshakeable no matter the circumstances.” Learning to develop one’s self-esteem in this way is not an option, Myss advises; today’s demanding and stressful world makes it a necessity.
Quantum Power and Self Esteem
Myss believes we are in an era where we are the first generation to “add power to self.” What does she mean by that? All we have to do is look at the personal development and self-empowerment books that line the shelves of our local bookstore. But self-esteem doesn’t fit in one package; it can be best understood by what Myss calls the “Three Levels of Self-Esteem”:
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- Level One, Survival Self-Esteem: Inner qualities such as cleverness, endurance, physical stamina, or our survival gut instincts.
- Level Two, Inner Self-Esteem: Refinement of personal qualities of character that include courage and integrity, and learning how to rely on your values in life.
- Level Three, Mystical Self-Esteem: Capacity to rely upon your inner spiritual experiences and guidance, creating a harmonious balance between the interior and exterior consciousness.
Myss points out that the deep transformation that emerges from the development of our three levels of self-esteem can not only have a global impact, but is also causing a shift in our relationship to the world, one in which we have become hypersensitive. She relates this to the amount of personal power we contain; by learning how powerful we are and the potency of our words and our lives. We are navigating a “mindfield” that is also a “minefield,” what our mind contains and what we claim as “mine.”
What is Mine? What is Mind?
Hypersensitivity can be the portal to understanding what is “mine,” as well as the “mind” because it can give us critical information about what power feels like.
We’re able to learn to transform the small hurts into a sense of mindfulness and personal power that is the “microcosm of our own soul power,” or as Myss calls it, “charism,” the grace an individual soul has; one’s “single tone in this universe.” Myss sees this charism as both a response to our rapidly changing world, and part of a sacred “archetypal initiation” essential to our self-esteem’s fullest potential.
When we move away from worrying about what others will think, we tune into and trust what Myss calls the “interior, the unreasonable self-esteem…where miracles are.” It is the place where we go from living by fate, allowing fear to determine the outcome, to living by destiny, trusting in and listening to our inner guidance. To do so requires that we understand we have a choice, and there is power in our choices.
The Power of Choice
Do you pay attention to how much time you spend in your day being concerned with how other people view you, or giving away your power through accommodation, or what others say about you and your actions? Do you rely on self-guidance, or on other’s guidance? Myss suggests if we offer up our inner life for others to sort through and return to us, rather than relying on our own self-esteem and the power of our own choices, we’re taking the path of fate, and not of destiny.
While the path of destiny is full of risks, it is one rich with inner guidance. It is a path we choose to walk on where our esteemed power is released. “Power is the fundamental ingredient of the human experience,” Myss shares. “And choice, it is our great tool.” As creatures of energy, she continues, our power fuels our being with choice being the expression of our power. But really, how powerful can one active choice make for you, or those around you?
Choice as a Powerful, Transformational Instrument
What if your choices could change the quality of your health, your life, or the direction of our world? What if our choices contained that much power? Well, Myss believes they do; she believes all of us are that powerful to positively impact the way in which our lives unfold. As we are more and more in contact with our intuitive, energetic selves, and the energetic world, we’re beginning to make more energetically-focused choices which contain more power than any physical ones.
Energetic choices assist us in looking beyond the obvious and to attune the underlying energies that are there to help us live in balance and truth. These deeper choices represent “power of one clear truth of one clear choice” and represent what Myss calls our “inner-net,” an energetic grid of life made up of our emotions, thoughts, and actions.
Whether you believe in God, Buddha, or a divine higher energy, Myss teaches that we’re led into “guidance so that you can make a choice. You are always being directed to make choices that empower you.” In fact, she believes we’re living in an “energetic Renaissance” in which every choice needs to be thoughtful and is profound. Myss also believes the times in which we live dictate a different “power strategy,” a strategy based on investing in the power of our life force and life choices.
But in order to develop our “power strategy,” we must learn to discern what choices empower us and which disempower us. To assist with this, Myss shares eight of the most important power biophysical spiritual choices one can make:
-To not betray yourself or others
-To live with integrity and truth
-To know and live your values
-To have a spiritual world view
-To practice kindness
-To be reflective daily
-To be of service
-To empower others
These biophysical spiritual choices are ones, Myss says, that don’t live in the outside world; they can only be seen by the person making the choices and “take place in the world behind your eyes.”
Myss recommends we set aside time every day to take stock of what motivates us, what directs our inner agenda, and the consequences our choices bring with them. For while self-esteem, self-empowerment, and self-choice are at the center of this discussion, every choice has a ripple effect on the whole of our world and we must accept responsibility for how our choices impact the entirety of life itself.
Myss’s “Sacred Power” teachings are ushering us into a new era of authentic power in which if we, individually and collectively, embrace our power, then we can empower others. For Caroline Myss, she considers this “the greatest choice I can do…because I am now giving grace away.”
About the Author
Praying With Humility: How To Change Yourself And The World
It’s perfectly appropriate to defend our belongings, lives, and loved ones, and to yearn for specific relationships and life-experiences. It’s also suitable to desire titles, positions, gobs of money, and the highest levels of success. You might even have fantasies of domination or revenge. It’s all part of the play.
While goals and desires can be conjured through intentions and focused effort, prayers tend to require a separate set of conditions and attributes. If all whimsies and hungers were equal to prayers, then prayers for football team wins, stock windfalls, and military massacres would dominate the supernatural circuits, and crowd the fulfillment funnel.
For a prayer to be considered “fair trade,” it’s probably best it meets one or more of these conditions:
- Reflects a personal, life or death situation
- Is born from pure, heartfelt intentions
- Stems from a place of humility
- Reflects a measure of reverence
- Does not require that other living Beings be hurt, punished, or killed
- Results in improved conditions for one or more people, the results of which do not threaten other living Beings
- Enhances an individual’s or group’s health, safety, mental capacity, attitude, emotional state, spiritual wholeness, comfort, relationships, or general well-being, including yours
- Expedites a person’s psychological, emotional, or spiritual evolution, including yours
- Inspires and invites feelings of positivity, kindness, and generosity
- Provokes compassion or empathy from anyone who might hear the prayer
- Immediately increases the vibration of the person praying
If your prayer doesn’t embody any of the above attributes, it might be more of a hope, desire, or goal than a prayer. Authentic prayer does not generally involve the ego. For example: praying for a financial windfall is probably egoistic, but praying to receive money to pay for your Mother’s surgery, might have measurable appeal to the Universe’s vibrational, response-network.
How do we create and improve our realities?
To up-level our selves and lives, we start with a feeling or a sense, then we slowly churn it into an intention. Once it’s embedded in us, we imagine related scenarios, outcomes, and destinations. Within these elusive dreams, we form agendas and implement actions, thereby moving us toward the fulfillment of our desires.
To accelerate our journeys, we might use games, leverage, strategy, or cunning. We might also engage our friends, allies, and demons. These are the systems and rackets that rule our physical lives within our three-dimensional realities.
It’s perfectly moral to have goals, dreams, and fantasies that are self-serving. Even a measure of greed can produce positive feelings and outcomes. It’s also permissible to dance with shadows and invite devils to dinner. What separates goodness from evil is not our thoughts or associations; it’s the upshot of our efforts. If hints of our intentions, and hosts of our actions, produce favorable conditions, we still might be invited to sit at the right hand of the divine.
When we’re in the aggressive pursuit of achievement and position, it’s not necessarily harmful or bad, but it’s probably not prayerful. Prayerfulness requires our vulnerability. If our prayers are muddied with desires for pleasures and trinkets, they can become superfluous, even benign.
What if we wish to shift something unique, deep, and lovely? What if our desires are perfectly pure and egoless? What if we have the heart, soul-intention, and desire-base of a child? What, then?
Strangely, the Universe, born from light, has the heart of a child. This child is not infantile; rather, She is the embodiment of the deepest and most profound truths in all of reality, and throughout all galaxies and realms. Whether you see Her as a God, Avatar, Master, or Guru, or the embodiment of pure electromagnetic energy giving birth to matter and circumstance, She is truth itself.
When we beckon the Divine, we enter into courtship with eternal light. It doesn’t matter if we’ve named him Jesus, Buddha, or Elm Tree, and it doesn’t matter whether we’re rich or poor. What matters most is that we have chosen to bow to a Supreme Being, which is also us. As we embody the purest humility, we see through the eyes of the Divine, and into forever. It’s in this state that prayers are immediately fulfilled.
Once we are in a complete and humble prostration to the eternal Self, we can be anyone or anything. In this position, we can share every tidbit of our pain and let it all out. We can be sad, angry, or delighted. We can be full of love, rage or hate. We can be selfish, and we can beg. Most importantly, as we lay our hearts and burdens at His holy feet, we free ourselves. This is how every soul, regardless of religion, can be immersed in the bosom of eternal light, and be born again.
Genuine prayer is not easy. It comes at a price. To connect with and shift the fabric of reality through prayer, we must first admit that our self-identities and personas are temporary and barely real.
While we might not need to embody our purest selves at the start of our prayers, we need to be open to our unraveling. Without a doubt, to achieve a durable state of prayer, we must acquiesce to the All-That-Is, from the cores of our beings.
The Reality Of It All
When leading and participating in Native American and Pagan rituals, I’ve seen people heal themselves of hatred, depression, and disease. I’ve felt spirits exit bodies, and I’ve seen miraculous transformations in the most broken and horrid people.
Through deeply intentional and action-based prayers, I know that anything is possible. Even if for a moment, if we can strip ourselves of our false identities and desires, and open our hearts to the vibrations of pure light, we can co-create any reality.
To begin, sit in silence, and bow to the eternal master. Call out to your angels, guides, Gods, and helpers in all the realms. Yearn to be opened. Beg for the light to blow you away.
