One aspect of rewiring my brain has been finding music that reflects the values I am cultivating. The artist how has come up over and over is India Arie. She has songs about slowing down, healing, joy, hope, and change, that I have been listening to in order to help rewire my brain. Today, I checked out her website, including her blog for the first time. I really liked this blog post excerpt about claiming your own power. I had a similar conversation with a friend recently. I thought you all would enjoy India Arie's words as well:
"...giving your power away means: giving someone ( or some THING) power to dictate how you feel about something, mainly YOURSELF.
When my health went out of balance for the sake of my healing, (thank God for getting my attention) I learned that I had to take my power back by:
1. Accepting what was happening and knowing that my life had to go on even while feeling profoundly flawed
2. It was my responsibility to heal myself.
3. Giving myself the care I needed to heal on a health protocol level including speaking my truth and commanding respect from the people around me.
I SEE now looking back, that embodying my power is separate from TAKING it back, I’ve lived in a constant (exhausting ) state of FIGHTING for my power … for at least the past 6 years. no maybe the last 10 years … come to think of … since my early teens ….
TODAY! My intention is to Love Myself by EMBODYING my power, to have it inside of ME at all times.
Right now at this early stage, loving myself and embodying my power is a practice that lives in the MOMENT. When something comes up and threatens to take my self definition away, I look the monster in the eye. That act of LOOKING can manifest as many thing… PRAYER (talking to God), Meditation (listening to God), journaling, asking to be shown a path to healing … calling one of my elders to talk it through, asking for a message and seeing it come up in the perfect page I turn to, or seeing a movie that illuminates the perfect truth, a dream, remembering something someone said, … but that ALL STARTS with the asking for insight into how to deal with this particular challenge and the answer ALWAYS COMES.
Excerpted from India Arie's Blog, Soulbird Journal October 3, 2012 post.
India Arie continues to be the artist whose music has most accompanied my healing journey in the 10 years since I wrote this. It's really cool to see how her process has continued to evolve and what it has led to in the art she offers. Her most recently album, Worthy, is a direct transmission to her audience of these messages of self-empowerment and worthiness. I love seeing how her journey has paralleled mine and how the music she offers continues to be a north star helping to guide my path.
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