Your Story Is Your Power

by Elle Luna

  As Achievers grow in awareness of their personality, they will begin to see how their need to be seen as the successful one in order to prove their value has disconnected them from the intimacy and joy of their authentic self. They start to identify and express the truth even if they fear “looking bad.”

  When an Achiever reconnects to her heart, when her story demonstrates to her that her internal experience is fantastic, the fear that she has no value lessens. She experiences the preciousness of her own depth, and she feels connected to herself and to others. She experiences the virtue of her own truth, and can in turn share that truth with the world. The achiever models the facet of Feminine Power that is experiencing and expressing the precious truth with heart. With it comes a generous and humble kindness towards self and the world.

  The Individualist

  Enneagram Type Four

  Passion/Vice Envy

  Virtue Equanimity

  Conveys sadness to show absence of significant purpose and to combat desperate fears of inadequacy in comparison to others.

  With the experience of the self as truly unique, ordinary life ceases to feel dull or dangerous and one feels emotional balance.

  As Individualists become more self-aware, they start to let go of their fear of being fundamentally flawed and begin to experience the calm sense of being deeply connected to everyone else. In the center of her story, an Individualist is able to connect to her sense of beauty, depth, and significance. When she accepts that she is truly unique, she gains room for others’ uniqueness and relaxes in her own worthiness to live in a state equanimity.

  The Investigator

  Enneagram Type Five

  Passion/Vice Avarice

  Virtue Non-Attachment

  Grasping at evidence and “proof” to make one feel safe and to allow for time to privately pursue reality through intellect.

  Reconnecting to the intelligence of the heart and emotions reduces fear and releases attachment to seemingly objective data.

  As Investigators grow, they start to relax their need to collect more and more information and begin to feel confident and secure in the world. They connect to the safety and support of a quieter, more relaxed mind, wherein they feel connected to and trust the innate intelligence of the universe.

  When an Investigator enters into the center of herself, she experiences the loving presence of her true nature, and she releases the need to hoard information or other resources in order to feel protected. Relaxing into her Feminine Power, she lets go of the need to know everything and instead trusts her internal connection to love as a template to do the very thing she craves: to reach out to others.

  “Knowing what must be done does away with fear.”—Rosa Parks

  The Troublemaker

  Enneagram Type Six

  Passion/Vice Fear

  Virtue Courage

  Mimics valor by presenting a doubting mind and a dependency on rules and authority.

  Reconnection to the heart builds trust in self and others, replacing fear with hope.

  As Troubleshooters grow in awareness and rely less on worry as a form of protection, their suspicions and fearfulness relax, and they are able to reconnect to their heart, accessing both love and courage. They practice their intuitive capacity to spot actual danger effortlessly.

  When a Troubleshooter sees who is at the center of her story, she is able to relax because she sees that she is there to take the lead. Her inner guidance becomes her support system, and her heart becomes her touchstone so that she can release any sense of panic. Stepping out from the prison of the worried mind into the Feminine Power of trust in her intuition, the Troubleshooter revels in the courage that arises in her.

  The Enthusiast

  Enneagram Type Seven

  Passion/Vice Gluttony

  Virtue Sobriety

  Intense focus on ways to rapidly consume experiences in order to keep the fears of suffering and boredom at bay.

  Accepting the reality and nature of emotional pain reduces the need for outside stimulus and brings about an internal sense of fulfillment.

  As Enthusiasts bring gentle awareness to their need to keep moving on to new things, and as they slow down and take in the moment, they begin to feel a natural rising joy and feel satisfaction with what they have.

  When an Enthusiast experiences the feast inside of her, her heart starts to feel fed. The original disconnect from the bountiful feeling of joy starts to heal, for at the center of her story she sees that she is interesting and lovable in all of her painful adventures. Her sense of emptiness and the terrors of being trapped in pain dissipate. The need to overindulge is replaced by a deep sense of sobriety, a pure joy that the inner life is truly abundant. The Enthusiast exudes the Feminine Power of love of the ordinary, comfortable self-restraint, and fulfillment in all aspects of existence.

  The Challenger

  Enneagram Type Eight

  Passion/Vice Lust

  Virtue Innocence

  Attempts to control the environment and others by increasing intensity of interactions in order to avoid feeling weak and unwanted.

  Accepting vulnerability dissipates the need to control, providng an intimate give-and-take relationship with others.

  Challengers grow when they begin to share power and realize that real strength lies in their ability to be emotionally vulnerable to others.

  When a Challenger connects to the center of her story, she sees the lost child of herself that learned she must toughen herself to survive. She feels a connection, and a longing, to touch that state of innocence. When she lets go, her vulnerability provides her with the strength she has wished for, and she no longer needs to protect herself through forcefulness. The Challenger’s vulnerability enables her to connect with a profound sense of childlike openness, so she can truly believe she is wanted because she wants even the weakest part of herself, the child within.

  The Challenger’s Feminine Power is magnanimity because she accepts and loves her vulnerability.

  The Peacemaker

  Enneagram Type Nine

  Passion/Vice Laziness

  Virtue Conscious Action

  Seeks comfort in a distorted sense of love by merely not offending, sacrificing her needs in order to accommodate the needs of others.

  The ability to take action despite the commotion it might cause, the self-sufficiency to pursue reconnecting to the self and pursuing

  one’s needs and dreams.

  When Peacemakers stop seeking harmony at all costs, they start to express their needs, overriding the fear of conflict, giving them energy to discern their own unique desires and needs.

  When a Peacemaker arrives at the heart of her story, a deep sense of self-love arises. She accepts the drama and the waves she has created in her life because she is alive in her own story and is the star of her experiences. She no longer feels that she must remain invisible to be safe and discovers that true safety arises when she is in heartfelt connection with herself and what she cares about.

  The Feminine Power of the Peacemaker is the ability to transcend the word can’t and to take action for the benefit of self and others.

  Access your Feminine Voice

  Take your dreams seriously

  If you want to learn more about your subconscious and unconscious desires, study your dreams. They are a powerful tool for acc
essing the hidden aspects of your mind. In dreams, you will find rich symbols, which you can interpret.

  Because memories of your dreams will fade quickly, keep a pad of paper, journal, or recording device next to your bed or with you during the day in case you remember something about the dream. When a dream arises, record it immediately. Write down the essential parts of the dream, as well as colors, textures, and the way different experiences in the course of the dream made you feel. As you would in a recorded movie, pause your dream, look around at what you see, and try to clarify how you feel about it. The more you document about the dream, the more content you will have to delve deeper into the symbols and what they might mean for you.

  Once you’ve written down your dream description, go through it and circle each item that might be a symbol for something else. Next to each symbol, write down what it means to you. After you write down your own meaning, you might want to research the symbol to find out what it means within your culture, although you can look at other cultures as well for ideas. Your night dreams are often very potent with symbols that seem very enigmatic at first, but the more you dig, the more you will discover.

  You can use this same process for daydreams as well. For example, let’s say that one day you start thinking of owls for no specific reason. You can ask yourself, “What do owls mean to me? What meaning does my culture attach to owls?” Your answers to those two questions might give you a clue about what’s going on in your mind.

  I have a fear of spiders. They show up in my dreams consistently, which is quite frightening. In the psychology of Carl Jung, that means that I am afraid of that part of me that is represented by a spider.

  I thought that spiders symbolized negative aspects of the feminine until I started researching other cultural references. The Navajo culture’s Spider Woman was known for saving humans from monsters and enemies and taught them the art of weaving on a loom. In the Lakota tradition, spiderwebs catch dreams. According to Choctaw mythology, a grandmother spider stole fire from the people in the east for her people and safely carried it back to them. She bears the design on her torso to show her bravery. In the Hopi tradition, Spider Woman is the goddess of the earth and sang everything into worldly existence. In other Pueblo cultures, Spider Woman threw her dew-laced web across the sky, and the dew transformed into stars.

  I realized that, for me, the spider represents my intimidating feminine side. I have been afraid to be powerful or intimidating, yet at the same time I longed for it. As a teenager, I was not in love with Captain Kirk or King Arthur, I wanted their jobs. I wanted to cultivate my own feminine leadership abilities—to let my power create a world I dreamed about. The spider was in my dreams to draw out the leader in me.

  I have recurring dreams about snakes. In one of the earliest dreams, two snakes are swirling around my arms. One is fluorescent pink and the other is sapphire blue. Suddenly, one of the snakes bites one wrist, and then the other snake bites my other wrist, but the bites don’t hurt. When these dreams started, I recorded them on my phone the moment I awoke.

  Even though snakes in real life are quite scary, they were not scary in my dream. They felt like helpers or special guides, and their painless bites filled me with a warmth that felt like courage or inner fortitude.

  I began to research snakes and discovered that they are ancient symbols for transformation because a snake is able to shed its dead skin while remaining alive, like a rebirth. The snake represents the giver of life. This dream was incredibly powerful because in my waking life at that time, whenever I would take a new step or try out a new skill, it would feel like parts of me were dying at the same time that all of this new growth was happening. Like the snake, I was shedding parts of myself.

  I also learned that snakes were associated with the Egyptian goddess Wadjet, or Ua Zit, who was often represented as a cobra, and that women would use the venom from snakes as a tool for heightened awareness and prophecy. A few weeks later, I saw a video of a modern-day Burmese snake priestess who called a king cobra out of his den and kissed him—in spite of his hissing and agitated state—three times on his head in order to bring rain to her people. I was stunned not only because I had never seen someone kiss a king cobra but also because it was a snake priestess. I could not recall seeing many female spiritual leaders during my lifetime. It helped me see that divinity can be feminine just as it can be masculine.

  A few months later, while traveling in Indonesia, I visited the home of a local family to take part in the sacred ancient water purification ceremony. The home smelled of sandalwood and jasmine, and it had a large family temple in which we gathered. At the front of the temple was an altar, and as I looked up at it, I saw a large statue of a Snake Goddess with thirteen cobras coming out of her head. And then a woman emerged and took her place at the altar. She was a snake priestess—a living, breathing Snake Goddess who was going to bless me with water.

  The cobra continues to show up in my dreams, and whenever she arrives, I know that I am experiencing my own positive power as a woman to affirm life.

  Explore you senses

  If you feel that you may have lost touch with parts of your body over the years, kinesthetic experiences (learning with your body) can help awaken and enliven you.

   Take a dance class centered on moving your hips, like Hula or Hip-Hop.

   Awaken your senses by exploring scents, using aromatherapy, kitchen spices, or candles.

   Explore different emotional temperatures and activities that evoke your desired state. For example, if you’re craving warmth, try a Salsa class, cook with cayenne and other peppers, or include more red in your jewelry or clothes. Or if you want to feel cooler, take a trip somewhere wintry or quiet, learn a handicraft, or wear soft, pale blue hues that relax you.

   Become more aware of your body and the signals it’s sending throughout the day: What can you taste, touch, smell, see, and hear right now?

  Write your definition of feminine power and find a symbol for it

  Writer Natasha Dern describes Feminine Power as “ . . . [a] type of Mystical Radiance [that] permeates and radiates from women who are anchored within their body.”

  Many years ago, I found myself drawing red lotuses over and over again. I doodled them on notepads, made pastel drawings of them, and finally made one into a logo for a business. I loved the strength and beauty of them, and I knew lotuses were a symbol of the process of enlightenment. The mind evolves like the journey of the lotus as it grows from a seedling through the mud and water eventually to bloom in the sunlight; the water, the mud, and the sunlight represent the levels of consciousness. I knew I valued lotuses for the many things they represented to me, but why was I compelled to fill their petals with a fiery red?

  I discovered that in Tibetan yoga dreaming practice, it is recommended that in order to have peaceful dreams, you imagine yourself in the center of a red lotus and focus on the sound ah. This practice is designed to bring awareness to the unconscious workings of the mind and, in that awareness, transform the role of self from a victim of the “monkey mind,” into a self-determined agent.

  I finally understood my connection to the color red when I stepped into the color one day by surrounding myself with orange-red fabric. I felt calm and vitalized. I remembered this same feeling when I was in Tibet, and I would walk into meditation centers for monks and nuns where the overriding color would be the deep-red, long, curtainlike fabrics draped from the ceilings and the red of their habits. Red has the longest light wavelengths on the color spectrum, and it is known to be calming during meditation. In the East, red is associated with the first of the energy centers called chakras, located near the tail of the spine. I wondered if red was used to help meditators calm their racing thoughts. Yet I also knew it could stimulate the brain and ignite passion. It is the color of fire and of molten lava as it comes out of the earth. Fire-red catalyzes, adds energy, and clears a pathway for something new.
I concluded that red represented to me the unfettered vitality of life that transcends “rational thought.” For me, a red lotus, which I drew below, was a symbol of the fire and power of the feminine, clearing away the clutter of the patriarchy to make a vitalizing call for the creation and continuation of a loving and beautiful life.

  One day, I had a dream where I was walking down a long hallway with a bodyguard. He was tall, strong, and walked close to me. I felt safe with him. We went to the hair salon because I wanted to get my hair done. My bodyguard picked me up with his strong arms and set me down into one of the big swivel chairs. We looked around the salon, but didn’t see anyone to do my hair. My bodyguard reached into his pocket and pulled out a long, pink satin ribbon. He took a lock of my hair, combed it with his big hands, and very gently began braiding the ribbon into my hair.

  This dream represents my new relationship with my internal masculine as a result of doing this work. My inner misogynist is now a loving, kind bodyguard who treats me with respect, love, and protection. To me, this is both the definition and the gift of Feminine Power.

  At the center of your story, you receive your own resources because you have relaxed your defenses and released any blocks to your own generative, feminine energy. As you continue to find your true voice, a wellspring of inner fulfillment will become abundantly, endlessly available to you.