Being of Power

“Make of yourself a light.”

— BUDDHA

The path of transformation has no end. It’s a profound, lifelong commitment to moving up to something bigger, living in an evolving inquiry, asking with each new insight what’s possible, and loving the possibility of growing beyond who you know yourself to be.

Much of what you’ve put into practice here is about what I call true-north alignment. This is where we bring it all together into aligning ourselves always, in all ways, into whole-life integration. Gandhi said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” That is integration. Taking your personal philosophy out of the mental ashram and putting it into practice in your everyday world makes it real and alive.

You have a North Star that illuminates your path to an extraordinary existence. I don’t literally mean a star, of course, but symbolically and energetically—a spiritual focal point that is within you, beyond you, and leads you toward something greater. It’s the bright future that you are living now. Your North Star empowers and informs your actions in this moment. It gives you your thoughts, attitudes, point of view, and body sensations in the present. In Eastern spiritual principles, acting toward that greater purpose is referred to as sadhana, which means that you’re being intentional in life, staying true to creating continual aliveness and expressing it through your everyday activities and commitments.

As you put the practice of aligning to your North Star into action, you will do a lot of great clearing. You’re giving up bricks, letting go of old ways of being and seeing, releasing resentments and fears, cleaning up past messes, forgiving yourself and others, and dropping disempowering stories. The universe will not tolerate empty space, though, so if you’re not consciously filling it with new, positive actions and energy, what will? The past, by default. This is the idea of sadhana practice: intentionally filling the space. If we don’t do this, then the habitual patterns of old start to take over again, and we get more of the same.

Maybe you weren’t purposefully creating into your space in the past. Maybe you were unconsciously and reactively filling it with drama, cynicism, resignation, and so on. Pause for a moment, and examine your life up until now. How has it turned out? Another way to say that is, “How have you been filling your space?” What you see before you and around you is a direct result of how and who you’ve been. It’s not a question of the right or wrong reality, but whether it’s working for you. Does it need updating and new energy? What’s next?

Sometimes people share with me that they haven’t been inspired about anything in their lives for years. That can be difficult to confront for many individuals, but they can allow feedback to be the fuel that motivates them to create a new reality. You can commit to sadhana and make what you want real. By putting into action the nine practices for igniting your life, you bring forth the possibility of creating yourself and your life as a true expression of who you are. These practices don’t necessarily enhance or improve the options you have in front of you; rather, what you’re given in each moment is the power to choose who you’ll be and how you’ll fill your space and your future.

Creating Tadasana

In yoga asana practice, Tadasana, also known as Mountain Pose, is the true north of all yoga poses, because it allows you to tune in to your body and hold it as a clearing for possibility. In this pose, you stand upright with a sense of vitality, your feet grounded and activated a few inches apart. Your spine is stacked, relaxed, and straight; your arms are extended by your sides; and all your muscles are drawing in toward your centerline and core so that all parts of your body integrate and work together in harmony as if they were notes in an orchestral arrangement. Your eyes are focused forward with a calm determination. Much like a ballerina performing on a stage, the pose appears effortless yet dynamic.

Anyone walking by a yoga class on any given day might look in and see students in Tadasana and think they’re pretty much just standing there, which, on one level, they are. But on a whole other level, they’re putting into action the physical and energetic practices that create the foundation of all asana practice, because every pose begins with that sense of inner alignment—it empowers students to move and breathe from their center.

Lose Tadasana, your true north, and you lose your power and what’s possible in the pose. When you find that you’re off center, restore integrity by coming back to true north alignment of Tadasana and begin again. The same holds true in your spiritual life. That energetic center is where you access your power.

There will be lots of times where you’ll feel that sense of whole-body, life alignment. Things will be expanding and flowing, and you’ll feel open, vital, and creative … all the energetic results of being in and of your power. You’ll feel it one day, and the next you might find yourself struggling again, wondering where it went. But remember, there is nothing to fix. There is nothing wrong with exactly what is so, as it is. In these moments, you want to simply get present to where you are and ask that one simple question: “What do I need to give up right now in order to be at peace?”

You may fall back—sometimes even three, four, or five steps. When you do, just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, restore true north, and find Tadasana again. No drama, no story. When we’re committed to something bigger, it doesn’t mean that we won’t have failures or setbacks. It just means that we don’t quit when we do. As Lao-tzu said, “Life is not about never falling, but rather it’s about getting up each time we fall.”

It’s a constant practice. In each moment that you wake up and realize you’ve lost Tadasana, turn that insight into action, recommit, and begin again. The spiritual muscle you are creating is getting stronger right now, and, as with any muscle, it needs repetition to continue to build. Over and over, it’s a realization of, “Wait. This is old, unconscious stuff. I know what it costs me, and I’m not going back into that box. The lid is going to stay on this time.”

Standing in Tadasana is immediately grounding and gives you access to a solid foundation. Consider that whenever anything upsets you, you’re in your thoughts and not present, and when that’s the case, outside forces can get to you and knock you off balance. You’re “messable” anytime you feel threatened by a situation, and this is a big clue that you’re not operating from your true north.

I’ve had the privilege of co-creating and being involved in the Africa Yoga Project with Paige Elenson, one of my longtime friends and students. I’ve visited Kenya several times to teach yoga to some of the most impoverished but spiritually hungry and alive individuals I’ve ever met. At the same time, these people are living with centuries of political and social unrest, which I experienced on my last visit.

At one of the leadership sessions, there was a kirtan master who was leading the participants in a chant to the Indian deity Ganesha. This was a group that represented different tribes and religions, some of whom were devout Muslims who did not take the least bit kindly to anything related to Hinduism, and all hell broke loose. Some of the students flew into a rage, ready to battle the yogis who embraced the Hindu references. The chaos and fury I had to navigate that day were amazing—this was unlike anything I’d done as a teacher up to that point in my life.

When I finally got the room calmed down, I turned to the man—a Muslim—who had been ready to physically fight one of the other participants and calmly asked him, “Why are you threatened? Why do you need to take him down in order to be right? If you have your god, why are you threatened by his?” What emerged was a dynamic conversation and inquiry into the idea of being “messable,” which brought the whole group into a space of greater acceptance.

When you’re flowing from your center, other people’s judgments or opinions can’t stir you up. You’re on purpose with your eyes set on the prize, and what they say, believe, or do doesn’t easily stir you up, trigger you, or stop you from being yourself. I’m not talking about pretending something doesn’t bother you; remember, at the heart of all of this is authenticity. I’m talking about putting into practice the tool of not having to make someone else wrong in order to be able to stand in your own truth. There is your truth, their truth, and probably 100 other truths in between. None are wrong, and none are right. They just are. Let them be. So what if someone feels differently than you do? What does it cost you to let them be right? Nothing. What does it cost you to make them wrong? Your peace of mind, your energy for what you really want to create in your life, your power. … The choice is yours.

Wherever you are in your life, you want to find the inner stillness of Tadasana. When sailors are out at sea and they hit a storm, their strategy is to go straight into the eye of it and hang out in that stillness as the storm rages around them. Well, circumstances may be raging around you, but your work here is to use the transformational tools to stay true to what you are committed to and find your way to the calm center of spiritual power that’s always available within.

Your North-Star Principles

In “Practice #8: Defy the Lie,” I talked about how insights mean nothing without action, and this is especially relevant as you set about creating a life that reflects what’s most important to your heart.

Commitment is a technique I personally use to get clarity and intentionality for a vision of my life. The guiding values and practices that I’m operating from are a pathway to shape my vision. This vision is my North Star, and defining, writing down, and revisiting these practices is another way for me to stay connected to true north.

I’d like you to create your true north now with this process. You’ll want to spend 20 minutes or so writing in a journal the qualities you most value, such as authenticity, connection, love, truth, power, peace, vitality, or freedom, just to name a few. Write about how and why these are foundational to how you’re choosing to live. Imagine various situations in which these North-Star principles can be a part of your life (or be challenged) and what they would look like if they were. Then set a clear intention and commit to living to what you wrote.

Every morning and every night, shortly after you awaken and right before you go to sleep, review your list. Reviewing it twice each day gives you two solid opportunities to notice where you are and how you’re doing. This empowering exercise will support keeping you aligned and connected to these principles, and also give you feedback about where you might have veered off course. As with anyone walking a path, you need to make sure you stay on course, as there will be milestones and measures that will reflect your journey.

If you fall out of integrity, please give up the temptation to go into story land and make it mean something! Just find your footing and root down into Tadasana, again and again. Recommit to your North Star, and move forward with renewed integrity and intentionality. In moments of emotional upset, you want to quickly revert to thinking that this too shall pass. Upset is akin to emotional indigestion—just try to let it go and get back to what you were up to before the situation occurred.

Another technique that’s amazingly effective for whole-life mastery is a visioning exercise. For this one, you’ll want to take out your journal and write the following:

By the end of [insert date here for accountability], I will…

… expand the boundaries of .

… establish new playgrounds of possibility in .

… invite surprise and adventure in .

… be one of life’s players in .

… disrupt business as usual and affirm creation in .

Be very thoughtful about what you write down and wish for, because remember, there is huge power in putting this out there! Every person I’ve heard back from who has fully taken on this exercise tells me that nearly all of these visions became reality once they began living from their power.

Finding Your True Purpose and Passion

Earlier in the book, I mentioned a point in my life when I felt really lost. I was in my early 20s and had just moved to L.A. I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t know who I was. Spiritually speaking, I was seeking, but I felt confused. I was doing yoga and meditating, and I’d pray, Guide me. Show me where to go, what to do. Even so, I wasn’t evolving or changing in the way I really needed. I was stuck, big time.

I eventually found a meditation teacher who inspired me. Something about what he was saying and teaching moved me and tapped into some kind of truth within me. I went to him and said, “You know, I’m totally lost and confused about what I’m supposed to be doing in my life.”

He replied, “Well, you don’t have love.”

I kind of didn’t really get that at first. I mean, I could get it on a bumper-sticker level, but it wasn’t resonating with anything deeper in me.

He could tell, so he put it another way. “You don’t have purpose, and purpose is love,” he explained. “A purpose that’s bigger than who you are and that you expand into allows for the presence of love.”

It wasn’t as if I magically found my purpose in that moment, but his words hit home. It was a pivotal step for me to see that I needed to create space for bigger possibilities and a purpose. I didn’t know what that was yet, so I just let the not knowing be. I trusted that I was on the path for it to eventually be revealed to me. From that day on, my outlook was more specific. It was like this: I don’t want to waste time and play disempowering games anymore. What is my true purpose? Creating this particular space and way of being, which unexpectedly allowed for the possibility of my life to truly make a difference, was an empowering context for me.

I shifted my perception from acquiring more strategies and skills to exploring and authentically engaging with questions such as, What is my life really going to be about? What does it mean to be human? and What matters most? I was open to a breakthrough, and I started to put my attention on what gave me that spark of inspiration in my heart—which, of course, was making a difference on the planet, teaching power yoga, and inspiring others.

We all have that little charge of energy around those things that we connect with; that’s where the opportunity is for purpose and the new possibility of love. For a lot of yoga instructors, that’s why they show up to teach. They have a passion to inspire others and share what they’ve gotten from their practice. And then they see that it’s an actual opportunity to keep growing and expanding themselves. (By the way, this doesn’t mean that once you find your energetic purpose everything becomes easy. Remember, everyone faces obstacles. That’s where setting your sights to your North Star will get you through.)

Eventually, I began teaching yoga full-time, and my whole world opened up. It was a true expression of the heart for me. My love for the practice and my passion for sharing it lit me up. I had a vision for how to simplify yoga and present it in a way that people from all walks of life could understand and use to transform their lives, so that’s the direction I went in.

But back then, when I was a young teacher with a new house and a family to feed, I had many sleepless nights, especially when we were running low on money. We often struggled to make ends meet, and keeping my dream alive was very tough. In fact, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, because the need to stay financially afloat brought up a lot of fear. Then I went through a painful divorce and the experience of having two business partnerships fall through, back to back. Although much of this was confronting on many levels, never once did I let go of my vision, and I learned hugely valuable life lessons as a result.

A major one I learned is that I was 100 percent responsible—yes, 100 percent—for how life showed up for me. I sourced all of it. I saw that many of the relationships I considered failures were actually successful graduations to becoming more authentic! Consider this idea: life is an educational adventure—the highs, lows, and everything in between.

I’ve taught and worked closely with many individuals who are very successful in different industries, including music, sports, film, politics, the ministry, and the field of human development. What many of them don’t talk about is the pain that is likely to be felt when someone falls short of their vision. We might get the impression that these individuals’ careers were magnificent, brilliant, and smooth from the start, but of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. Often the barriers to realizing our aspirations are a lot of very unhappy things. They’re those issues that few people talk about, because not many of us are willing to confront these things in ourselves.

Your greatest tests will come in the dark moments when your soul is being squeezed. That’s when you want to be grounded in your bigger purpose—your North Star. When your heart is truly lit up about something, you don’t do it, it does you, and perseverance becomes the only choice. Being resilient allows you to break through to what’s next when you’re challenged with obstacles in your path. Aligned to the power of love in your heart, you will be a gift to yourself and others. Rather than sparring with what’s confronting you, you’ll be creating space for grace.

In life, we must all sometimes know pain, but we also need to be fully aware of the ways we disempower ourselves by undermining or sabotaging the process of transforming our intentions into reality. At the end of the day, we either have the results we want (our intentions made real), or we have the reasons, stories, and justifications for why we don’t. The person who’s being of power doesn’t dwell in explanations and excuses, but rather in what’s happening in reality and the realization of conscious results.

The Greatest Calling

I’d just completed a workshop in Denver, when a student approached me saying that he wanted to share an important revelation with me. He told me that while we were meditating, he discovered that he was God—that they were one. He was clear as a bell about his realization, and my sense was that he wanted me to rejoice with him in his discovery.

I looked at him and said, “Okay, that’s really good. Now I want you to go to Darfur and feed the hungry and straighten out the situation there.”

The color left his face, and I could tell he was angry. It was obvious that he’d wanted my admiration for his breakthrough. We talked for a few minutes more, and I explained that although it was a cool and empowering discovery, his own transformation unshared was worthless. If he wanted to truly embody godliness, then his next natural steps would be to create results for other people.

The true secret of a great life, as I see it, is making a difference for others. All else is empty. When we’re empowering others through our sharing, that’s when we get what we really, really want. If we love something that’s bigger than we are, we’re in service to something that uses and possesses us. It’s so inspiring, that it’s natural to want to share it. And then, we find that what we give to others ends up expanding and manifesting even more within ourselves. Inspiration stimulates generosity, which in turn inspires, and on and on the cycle goes.

For most of us, life has been oriented around me, myself, and I. But at a certain point, that creates only emptiness. From there, we can easily end up medicated, physically exhausted or ill, depressed, or just plain unhappy. The key here is to look at the energy we’re exchanging with other human beings.

One of the Ten Commandments is about not stealing, and that goes beyond just material goods. There’s also the stealing of other people’s energy. Have you ever heard of psychic vampirism? Well, there are certain individuals who can suck out all your energy when you’re around them. For example, you spend an hour with them and feel exhausted and drained when you leave. Do you know anyone like that?

In life, you can either be an energy sucker or an energy creator. Are you someone who’s draining, or do you leave other people inspired? Consider who you are in relation to others’ life force. When you’re inauthentic, it’s inherent that you won’t create energy; there’s no light in your eyes. But when you’re in your power, there’s a kind of charisma. You walk into a room and the lights get brighter, people sit up a little straighter, and energy gets generated. That’s called asteya—being someone who generates life.

Albert Schweitzer said, “I don’t know what your destiny will be. But one thing I know: The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” Note that he didn’t say “try to serve.” Fulfillment, happiness, and real power come from having served fully, and in such a way where you continue to expand in your own ability to love, contribute, and make a difference.

Which kind of person are you evolving to be—an energy taker or energy creator?

The Power of Sharing

When you share your love with another person, it isn’t depleted or diminished; rather, it expands. The same is true with using the nine practices in this book. The more you talk about your experiences, the deeper they’ll become. Insights, inspiration, and new ideas that are released into the universe will spread and grow. The practice of offering what you’re accomplishing in your transformational practice is yet another source of power.

An important aspect of essential speaking in the realm of growth is to simply share your experience. What impact are the practices having on you? What do you see about yourself or your life that you didn’t before, and what’s now available for you?

Sometimes we don’t share what’s important to us so as to not lose any of it, but we’ll soon see that the more we do offer our experiences and commitments to others, the more energy builds around them, and the more we’ll experience opportunities opening up.

When you make things happen for yourself and tell the world about it, your environment is elevated. Expressing yourself creatively may light the fire that others need to do something for themselves. By your sharing in word and action, some people will start to take on what you’re up to; before you know it, a community is formed where everyone is exploring, learning, and working together to support you in whatever you’re up to.