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Women: 3 Ways to Wake Up Your Badass Self, by Rhoda Shapiro

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

In every woman, there is a badass, just waiting to be fully expressed. That's just the truth. Each and every single woman on this planet is a divine spark that has the power to light up the world.

Sometimes we forget this. Sometimes we buy into the limiting beliefs, or the fear, or the ideas that society might place upon us. And when we do this, we get cut off from the full, honest-to-Goddess truth of what we are. We start to live a life that feels very much disconnected from our hearts and bodies. We start to go through the motions, at which point elements of our daily lives begin to feel stale and uninspiring.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Women don't need to pour time and energy into living a life that is out of alignment with the full beauty, magic, and wonder of what they truly are.

Instead, we need to awaken that badass goddess within—the one who knows every rule by heart, but is fearless when it comes to breaking them.

Below are three ways to wake up your badass self. Pick one or all of them, and get the party started!

1. Find 100 items you don't need, and get rid of them.
When it comes to claiming the fullness of what you truly are, it's always a good idea to start releasing things that you no longer need. The act of releasing is beyond powerful. When you release things you don't need, you create space for what you do need. You are energetically telling the universe that you are done with the old, and ready to leap forward into what awaits you in the next moment.

So, try to find 100 items (yes, 100!) that you are ready to do without and move on from. Go through all the rooms of your house and see what no longer speaks to you. Get rid of the papers, the old magazines, the old trinkets, the old clothes you haven't worn in years, the broken doodads that you never got around to fixing (because in reality, you just never really cared).

Maybe your living environment is already spare and fine-tuned? Perhaps you've been doing this work already, of ridding yourself of clutter. If that is the case, then look in other places for opportunities to purge. Maybe there are emails in your inbox that need deleting, or photos and videos in your phone that have got to go.

Whatever you do, clear out some space, and you will raise your vibration exponentially.

2. Do a body scan and feel what's present for you now.
Many of us go through our days disconnected from what's happening within. This makes sense, given the myriad of responsibilities, meetings, appointments, deadlines, relationships, and...insert any other thing you can think of that bogs us down!

When we're not in touch with all the many sensations, emotions, and feelings that are coursing through us each day, we limit our potential. By not understanding and connecting to our inner landscape, we miss out on an essential aspect of who we are.

Because of this, it;s deeply necessary to check in every day. A great way to do this is by doing a body scan. Start at the bottoms of your feet and slowly make your way up to the top of your head. As you're doing this, feel into each space and notice if there's a hint of...anything...present. Maybe you feel a warmth in your knees, or a fluttering in your heart, or a tightness in your head.

And here's the important part: When you do feel something within, stop and linger there. Breathe and devote your full attention to the feeling or sensation. Give yourself over to it. Stay with this feeling and allow whatever wants to come to the surface to reveal itself. You might even "hear" the feeling deliver a message to you, telling you what it needs or why it's there.

Once you're through with one feeling, continue scanning and moving upward. Repeat the process with each new feeling you discover. If you don't notice anything within, don't worry about it. It might be tricky at first to notice all the sensations, because they happen so subtly. But you will, as you continue to do this. Just keep showing up each and every day to notice what's happening, without any expectations of what you might find there.

3. Raise your vibration by transforming your thoughts.
We are all energy. In fact, everything in the world is made up of energy. Depending upon our thoughts, feelings, and actions, we emit a certain kind of frequency, which actually, in turn, calls certain things, experiences, and relationships into our lives. If we want to actively shape our lives, we've got to raise our vibration and attract the things we want. When we start living life this way, we open up the door to endless possibilities.

The most powerful way to raise your vibration is to transform your thoughts. It's all about weeding out the thoughts that disempower, weaken, or belittle the true power of what you are. If we as women want to claim our power and wake up our badass selves, we've got to cut out the destructive thought patterns that are allowing us to think that we have no worth, or that we are any less than what we truly are.

The best way to do this is by staying wildly present. This means that whenever a negative thought creeps its way into our minds, we are there to swoop in and interrupt it. And once we interrupt it, we can replace it with something positive.

The real trick is being present enough to interrupt the thought. Because the thing is, we've grown so accustomed to allowing our thoughts to run rampant. We need to stay aware and awake to what's happening inside our minds. Each time we interrupt a negative thought and transform it to a positive one, we become more and more in alignment with our badass selves. We raise our vibration in such a way that each day radiates a certain kind of joy and power.

Use these tips to awaken your truest, fiercest potential. You are worthy, sacred, and divine. You are a living blessing on this planet. Keep on shining your light!

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2019. All rights reserved.

I get the feeling that many of my relationship issues with the opposite sex have their roots in past life experiences. For example, it's odd how the men I get involved with are almost always Asian or from an Asian culture. I've found myself drawn to those cultures in other ways too, even though there's nothing from my childhood or background in this life that would create this pattern. I'm wondering what this may mean, and what I'm supposed to do in order to move on to a fresh level of experience. It feels like I'm stuck in old patterns and connections. I've felt this way since my early 20s, and I'm now in my late 30s. I'm a Gemini.

- Chris

Dreamchaser:

I imagine everyone you might speak to about this subject would have a slightly different perspective or viewpoint on the matter, and of course, no one can say for sure.

I personally think our interpretation of all we see and experience is colored by our own soul's perspective. Just like you and I could look at the same person and notice two completely different things, and therefore describe that person somewhat differently, our souls view our experiences in various lifetimes differently.

My own soul's understanding is that we are a culmination of everything we ever experience. We carry past life information forward with us, and in this way, we carve out certain niches for ourselves.

We will often go to a place we have never been and find that it feels very familiar and comfortable, or on the flip side, familiar and uncomfortable. We may eat something we have never had and on some level remember that we've eaten it before. I believe the same goes for our interactions with other people.

For example, most people have a certain type that they are attracted to. My own type is a tall, dark man. I don't know why - I just have always been drawn to those types of men.

I am REALLY dating myself with this example, but when all my friends liked Hutch, I liked Starsky. Just like you, I can see no logical reason why this is the type of man I'm drawn to.

I'm betting that your love life problems have nothing to do with your type, but instead are rooted in the quality of men you have gotten involved with. You don't really want to start dating Scandinavian blondes - you just want to attract a higher quality of relationship experience.

I believe you need to look at yourself and fix some inner issues before you can fix your outer experience. With this in mind, I suggest you buy a book called One Day My Soul Just Opened Up by Iyanla Vanzant. It offers a 40-day process that I feel will help you a great deal.

At first you may not understand why I steered you towards that book. The back cover won't sound like something you need, but I urge you to give it a try. You have nothing to lose. I also highly recommend this book to everyone reading this, for I believe it offers a soul-filling experience regardless of one's particular problem or goal.

After you finish that 40-day process, you will have a new perspective on yourself, and will view life with new eyes. Then I think you'll make better choices about what you really want in love.

Of course, you ARE drawn towards Asian men because you have been Asian in past lives, and you enjoyed those lives - in fact, one in particular was your happiest life so far.

The important thing to realize now is that you still have time to make this life even better than that one.

I wish you awareness of what you really want.

*****

Astrea:

Being drawn to another time, place or culture can be strongly influenced by past life experiences, experiences in the past in this life, or simply personal taste.

When the same pattern repeats over and over without any explanation for it from this lifetime, chances are good that past lives are influencing you.

Even though we don't usually consciously remember where we were or who we were with in other lifetimes, there are parts of those lives that we carry from incarnation to incarnation, and those energies can strongly influence our personal preferences.

For instance, small children who don't care for sweets might have been diabetic in another life, while a person who suffered from a long-time illness in the incarnation immediately before this one might have an aversion to seeing doctors, and do whatever they can to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Violent deaths often cause people to avoid things in this life that they embraced in the last one, though the opposite can also be true.

My best friend was trampled to death by horses in several previous incarnations, going all the way back to the Roman Circus, but that doesn't stop her from operating one of the largest equine rescues in the country.

Just as things in our other incarnations can cause us to avoid certain experiences, people, places, or things, we can also be drawn to things we loved in other lifetimes, just like we're drawn toward people we've known and loved well before. If I was doing a past life reading for you, and you told me up front that you were drawn to all things Asian, I would begin to look for you in other lifetimes in Asia.

I usually begin by asking a person what her favorite colors are and why she likes them. Then I ask her to see a door. We continue by having her describe the shape and color of the door, what it's made of, the color it's painted, what the hinges are like, etc., and by the time she's finished with that, she's ready to open that door and step into memories of another incarnation.

Some people have one door, and some people have many. Most people with many lifetimes will open that first door to see a series of other doors, each different but connected in some way. Finding out what is behind each door isn't always fun or easy, but it can be very enlightening.

If you want to know more about your Asian incarnations, try looking for your own doors during meditation or other quiet times. Many people say that right before they fall asleep is a good time to do that.

Don't be afraid to walk through those doors either. Remember, what hurt you before can NOT hurt you now; it will just lead you to more knowledge of who you are and have been in other times.

You may discover a whole other life in which you lived, loved and delighted in things you've never even seen in this life.

I see a trip to China in your future - or is it in your past?

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.