Sovereignty

​To me sovereignty means being my own person.  It means standing strong and powerful in the middle of a sometimes chaotic and confusing world, and being true to myself no matter what others are doing or what others are wanting me to do.
Sovereignty has been a goal of mine my entire “spiritual journey” and the closer I get to this goal the more I understand how important it is and the more my idea of what it is has changed.

I once believed that to be sovereign meant to be alone – to stand alone and not let anyone or anything influence me.  To set firm boundaries around me and choose who and what I wanted to let into my space.  This works to some extent but this method can get a bit lonely.  I enjoy interacting with people, learning from others, hearing their stories, being entertained by our joint energies and what new energies we can create from our interactions.  I know that I am forever changed by all of these interactions, as are the people who interact with me.  It is a beautiful cosmic dance of energies, connections and evolution.  If I shut myself out then I miss out on the best part of life which is these interactions and what I learn about myself as a result.

I have spent many years in solitude and I realise the important part this time in my life has been, as it has quieted the noise of the world and let me get to know myself in a deeper way.  And then when I reentered the world it was easier to hear what was me and what was the energy of others.

When we rely on the energy of others to inform us of who we are, we are not sovereign.  Instead we spend time people pleasing, getting feedback from others, asking opinions, searching for praise, comparing ourselves to others in order to identify who we think we are.  This is a false sense of self and will usually result in us defending who we think we are based on the ego protecting the unhealed parts of us from being seen in the world.  For example, if we carry deep shame inside of us for something we think we did as a child (maybe we blamed ourselves for a loved ones death or the separation of parents) and we bury this, we hide it from ourselves and from the world so that others can’t know what a “horrible person” we are, and then if this shame is triggered we defend ourselves “it is not my fault!”  We are quick to blame the actions of others on our feelings instead of looking within and feeling our shame and guilt (or whatever that core emotion is) and finally processing all the feelings around this core wound.  Then instead of having this belief or rule about ourselves, we have an understanding of what and why and then we have love and compassion for ourselves in its place.

When the world triggers us, when someone does or says something that creates an emotieonal response from us it is an opportunity to look deeper.  But what most of us do is just create a rule about that behaviour or action or thing, and then just set a firm boundary – that thing is bad, that person is bad etc and cut it out of our life.  Intstead there is an opportunity to ask the questions - why is this behaviour causing me to react so strongly?  What does this remind me of from my past? Has this happened to me in the past and now I am remembering the hurt and emotion that I never expressed the first time?

This type of self enquiry can lead us to uncovering and understanding old trapped unprocessed emotions and when we finally connect the dots and feel that orignianl pain, shame, hurt, anger, grief, then we never need react to that sort of behaviour from the world again.  We become free and sovereign.

Free to be ourselves, our true core self, that is not constantly trying to protect itself from its core wounds, or justify its behaviour because of the unprocessed stuff inside.
We can’t become sovereign without emptying ourselves of all the noise and clutter and anything that we are too scared to face that is still within us.  Our pasts will literaly hold us back from becoming our true selves, as we stay stuck in the person who is too scared or ashamed to look truly at what they believe they are, based on the rules they created about themselves and the world from a young age.

Being sovereign also means that we no longer need to search for happiness or meaning in outside things, belongings, approval from others, status, success, money etc.  We know that true meaning and fulfillment comes from a deep knowing and awareness of self.  We have a type of self mastery which means we don’t just react to the world based on our beliefs/rules, but instead we create and respond to the world based on our understanding of who we are and why we have had the journey we have had.  The inner work gives us such a deep and layered understanding of ourselves and therefore the world, and this makes us impervious to the craziness of what is going on around us.  In fact we don’t even notice or attract the craziness anymore because we don’t need it as a trigger to bring up the unhealed parts of us anymore.

Life as a sovereign being becomes peaceful, interesting, creative and full of wonder.  No matter what anyone around you says or does, you respond (not react from your wounding) with love, compassion, curiosity and eagerness to learn more.