Sovereignty: Claiming Your Realm

Denise GuerringueShamanism 4 Comments

“If I Were Queen” is a game I liked to play as a child. I’d imagine all the things I would do if I were the Queen of the World, and then set about writing my proclamations. The first thing, always, on my list was the banning of peas. Of course, I never did become the Queen of the World, and the proof is (at the very least) that peas are easily had at any grocery store.

So taking over the world and setting it right and pea-free is not my destiny. But, living the purpose that I, as a soul, came here to live–that IS my destiny. But I could only begin to live it when I recognized, declared and named my sovereignty. That is, when I acknowledged to myself that my right to myself, my Self and everything about my life is absolute; it is a Divine truth, much like the rights of the monarch in the days of old. It was only when I was able to slowly claim my realm, eventually taking back ownership of every aspect of my life, that I was able to gain back my sovereignty.

Sovereignty is a powerful and practical concept from the shamanic perspective. It is the understanding that you are the absolute ruler of you, your life, and all that surrounds it. It is an understanding of your mastery over the realm of your physical, emotional and spiritual being in this world at this time. It takes into account that you, as the soul you essentially and eternally are, chose to manifest in human form for a specific purpose. Fulfilling that purpose is what you came here to do; and your sovereignty ensures that you can identify, claim and nurture the resources you need to do it.

Unfortunately, our capacity for sovereignty is often lost to us early in our lives, often at the tender age of 2 or 3 years old. This is because, as we grow, our families, schools, religions and other systems silently conspire to shape us into good, useful people. We are asked, even forced, to surrender turf and resources, and often to abandon our boundaries, in order to fit into our family and social systems. Even those of us fortunate enough to have had a “perfectly normal” upbringing are shaped and prodded in ways that eventually force us to surrender parts of ourselves and our power. Often, in the struggle to belong, we subconsciously recognize that our sovereignty endangers our belonging, and we jettison the part of ourselves (in a process we call Soul Loss) capable of holding our sovereignty. For those of us who’ve survived abusive families, this stepping away from our sovereignty is sometimes what we must do in order to save our lives, our bodies, our hearts or our spirits. The surrender of sovereignty is often a life or death matter for survivors.

What follows for so many of us after the loss of sovereignty is a lifetime of negotiating away the right to our power, our love, to the very fields of our being in order to fit in and survive. And we tell ourselves that it is just a fact of life; so let’s make lemonade out of lemons.

Or perhaps one day events conspire to shed a light on the idea that we ARE entitled to our lives, to every aspect of our selves, to every resource that will support our living our destinies. Perhaps we have an inkling, after a dream, a journal entry or a happy coincidence, that we COULD live fully in our power and in our love, joined in relationships that support us, doing work that we love. Perhaps we could create strong boundaries again, to keep out the things that incur upon and claim our resources, and to keep within the precious resources that sustain us. This is our birthright as souls having an embodied human experience. We do have the right to claim our realm, and every molecule of matter and meaning in it.

The first step we must take in order to reclaim our kingdoms is to develop the capacity to hold our sovereignty. We need to learn to walk our realm in a way in which we are the authority of ourselves and our lives. We need to know how good it feels to try on the mantle of authority and then order our lives under our own authority.

Perhaps this blog post is the thing that makes you wonder how you might become sovereign over your own life. Perhaps you’ll take one of these steps:

  1. If you know how to undertake the shamanic journey, meet with your helping Spirit(s) and ask:
    –Show me my sovereignty.
    –Help me to walk within this journey under the mantle of my own sovereignty.
    –What is the first obstacle in the way of my always being sovereign?
    –What is the first thing I must do to remove that obstacle?
  2. If you don’t journey, but do meditate, consider entering your meditation with the intention of creating space within yourself to welcome sovereignty back. In the way of most meditations, hold your intention on your way into your meditation, letting all intention go as meditation begins, trusting that your intention is already creating that space.  After your meditation, feel for a new sense of sovereignty as you walk the world; explore what looks different for you from this space.
  3. If you don’t journey or meditate, determine to take a walk, a ride or a restful sitting in nature. As you begin your nature experience, ask the world to show you what you need to know to begin the process of reclaiming your sovereignty. Look at the world through “soft eyes” that are able to discern the underlying energy of the world. Allow a soft knowing to come in through your eyes. Or consider entering into what the Celts have called the “betwixt and between,” or the liminal states. Place yourself where two or more things meet: the edge of the water and land, a crossroads, the beginning or the end of a footpath, or any other meeting place. Close your eyes, holding the intention that the next thing you sense will be your teacher. Then open your eyes, ears, sense of smell, sensation of skin and feel what the world has to tell you.

May your work show you the way to the heart of reclaiming your realm.

Blessings,

Denise

Comments 4

  1. How absolutely timely !
    Thank you for your inspirational wisdom.
    As always, you remind me of the direction my soul needs to take.

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