With winter quickly approaching, I find myself in need of more quiet time, seeking pockets of stillness in my day wherever I can find it. As the days are getting shorter, it’s natural to want to go inward and spend time on self-reflection. This week’s yoga offerings reflected my pull to quiet and this transition from fall to winter. Rather than move through flow sequences, we built heat by holding the poses, sinking into them, and allowing the body to settle in, unwind and go deep. By the end of class, faces were bright and shining, and the energy was quiet, sweet and peaceful.

It is a powerful act to honor and align with the seasons in this way. When the leaves fall away from the tree’s branches and a plant’s energy begins to move to its roots, the power and medicine shifts from above ground to the underworld. Similarly, we can draw our own energy in and down to connect with our source of power during this time of year.

We’ve arrived: the final post about power loss and how to live from a powerful center. So far, we covered losing our power by: giving it away, negative self-talk and saying yes when we mean no (aka finding our big Yes).  We’ve also explored several easy, accessible ways to get our power back.

Here we cover the last two ways to lose power: allowing limiting beliefs to determine our choices & disconnecting from our essential self.

I’m always happy for new opportunities, new learning and ways to support my community. There was a time when I happily said yes to everyone I loved and to all new opportunities that crossed my path.

My life was full and on many levels, I was satisfied. However, when I began growing a wonderful love relationship, I wanted time, energy and space for myself and for the relationship. I found I couldn’t do that without letting go of some things. Thus begun my exploration of finding my big Yes.

This is the 3rd post about ways we lose our power and how to find our center. In addition to giving away our power, we lose power through negative self-talk.

When we experience repetitive negative self-talk, or when we are in environments where there is an abundance of psychic litter (other people’s negative thought patterns), we can lose power. Negative thoughts create their own energy and affect us, others and the environment, depending on where we send the energy. When we target ourselves with that energy, or absorb others’ thoughtforms, the misplaced energy leads to a leaking of our life force. Instant power drain!

Have you had days when you feel fatigued, but don’t know why? Or you may feel like a part of you is missing? If this sounds familiar, you may be giving away your power.

There are many ways we can lose our power and get knocked off balance. We explore 5 of them in the next 5 posts, with easy tips to begin to get your energy back and find you center again. The first way of losing our power we explore is...

We give it away!  It’s true - giving away our power is common. We give it away by:

• Looking outside of ourselves for answers.
• Pouring ourselves (read: our power) into our work, especially people in the helping professions.
• Leaving a part of our heart behind when leaving a relationship or when a loved one passes.