***Awaken Your Spirit, Express Your Passions

There is a powerful vital life force energy that resides within each of us. Like a raging river, this vital energy needs a channel to flow and be fully expressed. When we allow it to move through us for example with our writing, artwork, or music…by expressing our passions, we allow the river of the divine to flow through us. When in the flow, we are in the present moment. Our spirits come alive; we feel at peace and can experience great joy and bliss. When we resist or block the flow of this creative energy, we experience constriction which causes us to feel anxious, physically ill and spiritually disconnected from our source of love, joy and abundance. Like a river being blocked by a damn, the water has no where to go and thus builds up more and more pressure.

At the beginning of the year, I created a New Year’s intention for 2009. It is – “To be an open channel for the divine flow of creation and expression.” Near my computer, I have a beautiful altar card with a colorful picture of a Dancing Fire Goddess, the Goddess of Expression. The card says,

“O Dancing Fire Goddess! Teach me to set myself free,
To create, to move to dance, to be!”

What is your soul’s passion? What is your unique expression? Have you given yourself permission to freely express who you are without limitation? If not, try these exercises to assist you with engaging more fully in your passions:

1. Sit down with your journal or note book and begin the page with, “I feel most alive when…” Write non-stop, without lifting your pen from the paper, for at least five minutes. Then, take the items that have emerged and create a list of your passions.

2. Next, evaluate how often you engage in each passion on your list. Ask yourself, “If I were to make more of a commitment to the expression of my passions, what might that look like? journal for clarity. For example, I recently joined a Writer’s Success Group to assist me with making my writing more of a priority. I now have weekly and monthly goals and a forum for accountability.

3. Now, meditate for 5-10 minutes and visualize yourself engaged in your passions. What do you see? What are you doing? How does it feel to express your self more fully? Allow the feelings that have emerged such as freedom and joy to anchor into every cell of your being. See the energy of these feelings as a color or light to help with the visualization.

4. Pick a symbol or representation of your passions. For example, if the feeling that came up during your meditation is that of freedom, then a picture of an eagle soaring might be a wonderful representation. Since I love dancing, the altar card of a Dancing Fire Goddess is inspiring to me. Find something that resonates deeply with your soul and place it where you will see it frequently. For example, you might place it as the background on your computer desktop or at your altar or both.

By allowing the divine flow of creation to express through us freely and abundantly, we feel more alive inside. Our actions are inspired from the depths of who we are and we are able to experience great joy!

“The more willing you are to surrender to the energy within you, the more power can flow through you.” – Shakti Gawain, author of Creative Visualization