Spiritual Perspectives on EMPOWERMENT

Spiritual Perspectives: Discerning News on current events relating to our personal energy and experience. The conversation revolves around the theme of "empower," exploring from where true empowerment flows. Especially, in today's environment. 

Season 1 Episode 28 of "...Discerning News."hosted by Teresa Shantz, Author and Podcast Host, Tom Shantz, "The Spiritual Businessman" along with Tiger Coll, D.D., President, Wayshowers College (SM). 

"The thoughts and insights shared here are crafted solely to nurture your personal and spiritual evolution, serving as gentle suggestions and guiding lights. By choosing to continue your journey with us, you embrace complete responsibility for your own growth, state of consciousness, and well being."

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Enjoy the first chapter of The Soul Quake Survival Guide here!

Chapters

• 0:00 Empowerment: The Core Theme
• 10:38 Acceptance and Opportunity in Empowerment
• 20:25 Releasing What No Longer Serves Us

Transcript

TNT SpiritWorks (00:00)
All right, welcome. This podcast, we're going to be in this episode, we're going to focus on a theme, a keyword. And that keyword and theme is empower, empower, which is the keyword for the month of July. And some of the materials that energy and overall concept. Yeah. work within the way showers college. So if I, let's start it off.

So if I say empower from a big picture, what's the first thing that comes to you? ⁓ A feeling of I've got the capabilities, the energy. That's a big one for me. It feels like the energy to accomplish to go get to pick up to create what I need. And since we're all about discerning news for me and power is about

finding stories and people in the world that give me a feeling of empowerment. Yeah, to me that the first impression I get is every opportunity, every moment, every situation is there for me that to not forget that, that I chose to be here and to be here is it's a tremendous opportunity.

It's not every soul has organized themselves to be here doing their work. So if I remember that I'm empowered to do whatever I need in one. Yeah. Myself too, with, lugging back to the discerning news or what's going on in the world, I can either be empowered by what I'm hearing, seeing, sensing of what's happening around me or in the world and in the news, or I can be disempowered.

So for myself, I have to go back to what is my personal pivot? What is the energy? What am I working with for myself and my journey in this moment in time? Because honestly, some of those some of those stories and reports that I hear out in the world may be to empower me and they may not look that way. So for myself, that's what I really recognize is what can empower me or what can disempower me that I'm what I'm focused on out in the world.

What strikes me is, is I said that when Tiger asked me, you know, what does empower mean to you? And I felt the feelings of it. You know, it struck me like, yeah, why do I ever think that I'm not empowered to go get what I need to get or create what I need to create, you know, for my benefit and the benefit of others. But subtly I buy into thoughts of not being fully empowered or thoughts of being disempowered.

And so, ⁓ interesting, I relate to that, guess, ⁓ how sensitive I am, you know, to the environment. So that's what's great about, you know, when we talk about spiritual work, for me, it's all about like, okay, I have this idea of being empowered. Yes, we all want to be empowered. You see that in the media, you see lots of coaches talking about empowering you, you know, it's a word I've been using for decades for various things, you know.

in terms of business, let's get empowered, almost to the point where it becomes ⁓ a meaningless word to me. But as soon as you said, what does it feel like? You know, what's your impression of that? I shared it. And amazingly, I get this insight. what's key? I can feel that I'm not fully committed to feeling empowered all the time. So what's getting in my way?

Am I picking up from thoughts and feelings from the environment? Am I buying into concepts that I've been fed in my first seven years or picked up, you know, from my first seven years? And this is what spiritual work is. It's not like hard work. It's just, let's take a look at that. Let's remove those layers so that I can be more me and be more free. Right. So the, can't fake.

it when it comes to that kind of stuff. This is what comes to me. I can't fake being empowered. I either feel it or I don't. You know, it's kind of like inner authority. No one can give me inner authority. I have to actually feel it. Is it one of those to be or not to be? That's right. That's right. Again, you go cook your noodle if you start thinking about it too much. But the one of the things that we are about

And if you're listening to this, you're probably about it too, is making sure there's a balance between my thoughts and feelings. Right. And I live in a society that is really promotes the intellect and the high thinking, and it can even, ⁓ put down the concept of feeling, right. The unconscious mind. So, ⁓

Having those in balance is a very critical to that sense of empower, empowering. So that's one thing that comes to me right away. The other part of it, of course, is starts to, if what, if I, what I have, I can give, I can't give what I don't have that kind of feeling. So when the word itself empower has a degree of implication that I'm helping other people that I'm giving of myself. Right.

So if I really want to do that, if I want to pass on what I have, if I want to give that hand up and, and help people be of service, ⁓ then I, it's important that I start with the mirror. And sometimes I need to kind of pump myself up a little bit because I've had bad days, but the end of the day is if I just come back home and remember who I am, where I came from, why I'm where I'm going.

Then it's so much easier to be of service. Right. And I'm not worried about that after I give up, give of myself that what's going to happen to me. Right. A lot of people are afraid to give because they, I'll miss something. I'll lose something. Right. That's there. and this program, we talk about the fear of death. Right. And

One of the reasons why the founder talked, had worked with the leaders of this program and introduced to them the Astrosoul program, because they wanted, he wanted to make sure that they really in their bones and their toes and their true feelings, they were not afraid of death. That there was no fear of separation. Because if there's just a hint of that in me,

I won't fully release and fully give of myself, right? I'll give with hooks. That's the bottom line. So that energy of remembering and restoring good word, restoring who I am, where I came from and where I'm going will give me the, the, the gift of giving because I won't be afraid to release myself fully. Yeah. So it's interesting with that.

You said quite a bit there, the feeling. Yeah. So the feeling part, I think for myself, that's been a real big thing in the last few years that I've really been coming into understanding more about who I am as a soul and how I my sensitivity, you know, picks up perceptions and how I, you know, have insights and etc. All the things that we do talk about in our programs and things. But recognizing that whenever, especially back to news, when I am checking out a new story, I'm hearing something going on in the world.

I can almost immediately tell if that's truth and if they're empowered enough and they've actually walked that talk of what they're saying or not. And I think this is a real benefit of understanding and feeling into who we are as a soul and having that truth and having that balance of the intellect and the feeling part because then you have the inner authority to go, that is something I want to be involved in or that is something I want to pass on.

that make sense? Yes, Well, you know, an astro soul that Tiger mentioned is Department of the Way Showers College and we have ⁓ programs, you know, we have workshops, and healing techniques and sessions to heal confusion and to help us ⁓ remember who we really are. And sometimes we work with astral means universal soul rather than astral, which is kind of a limited thing. And ⁓

Anyways, so you begin to discover who you are as a soul from the bigger picture perspective. And I know for me, there's a lot of inner peace in that there's a lot of ability, it helps me when I become more aware of that to trust the inner wisdom that I have, and to accept people for where they're at, because I have a feeling like, you know, I've been through that before. So I recognize that. So if you follow the links in our show notes, we can introduce you to some videos.

that can help you get started in becoming introduced to some of the programs we offer. Yeah. And I feel empowered sharing that. my gosh, I'm so glad about that, Tom. That's what we're about being empowered. Yeah. So I mean, the other things that I guess stand out to me with with that energy of empower is, ⁓ I'd say, acceptance and opportunity, those two things.

together for me, for me, those two things really come together because if I'm rejecting or rebelling against my own myself, but with people, right? I don't like the way that you are. I don't like that. I don't like that. You know, that's that whole energy of I'll love that one, but not love that one. Right. It's a, it's a lack of respect. ⁓ but it's difficult for me to just feel that empower and

share it and give it and pass things on, be of service. If I don't have that level of acceptance for people, and I'm not seeing life as an opportunity, right that that we kind of talked about that before. But if those two things aren't clear to me, I'm going to find an excuse to disempower the situation. Boy, the key word that comes out of mind when you talk about acceptance and opportunity is

stepping out of a victim. Yes, the victim. I'm a victim. You're a victim. We're a victim. Let's be a victim together. And be for a family. we're confused. And, know, again, back to there's people are where they're at. And so for myself and and my environment, I accept being able to accept where people are at.

and move into opportunities when people maybe ask for support or are ready to maybe move out of the victim state. And that's, think what you're talking about, Thomas, some of the classes and the events that we do and the, the camps that we offer at the Way Showers College. There's so much opportunity to truly accept where you're at to empower you to a whole new level of understanding. And the thing I want to mention about that too, is that it's not complex.

Yes, that's the hard part. It's not complex. It's fucking simple. I said the F word, but I did. It's simple. Tom doesn't like when I curse, but it's okay. We don't do it very often in on the online. It's a special program. It's special. You know, I feel empowered. How do you feel? Do you feel empowered about that time? Well, what comes to me is and what spirit suggesting that reminding me of it's you know, in some situations, I feel very empowered. I feel very confident.

I feel successful, I feel like I got this, and I just feel like I can cruise right through. And if I look at what are the qualities that I have that help me feel empowered, when I feel empowered, what is it that I do? Well, one thing is, is I feel free to communicate where I'm at. I feel free to communicate what I need. I feel free to communicate what I'm going for. And I feel free to ask people if they can help me or not help me.

And so then I know where to go. ⁓ I know what to do and I, I feel free to get advice, but there's times where, you were alluding to Tiger, or you said it quite clearly is why in certain situations I hold myself back. you know, that's what I'm picking up on. And so if I focus on the positive, you know, when do I feel empowered? That's the best start. What are some of my habits when I feel empowered?

And then it'll become more obvious to me when I don't feel empowered. You know, if I'm afraid to communicate, like we were talking about in the green room, like something stimulates me and now I'm afraid to communicate, you know, like, ⁓ what's Teresa going to think about that? better, ⁓ I'm supposed to, you know, all this happens in that nanosecond. Yeah. And, or, know, the people that, and she's not even thinking about it. I mean, this is all my, you know, my thing. She.

She, you know, she says the opposite to me kind of a thing. But obviously I've been conditioned. So those are habits I picked up in my first seven years that don't work for me. So spiritual growth for me, I've often said is just releasing the things that don't work and then working with my guidance and my true feelings to what do I replace that with? What's the truth, the universal truth? What's the reality of my experience as a soul?

to remind myself of that. Let's get into that. This is going to be a good, this is going to be a good podcast. Good episode. So let's get into that. So the, cause I want to talk about release that energy of release, right? And you were bringing up in the green room that I need to be focused on my, my positive qualities first.

Right. In this society, we just get so much like, let's go. This part of me is negative and bad. I'm going to put all this energy into that. And I need to do some of that. Right. That's the reality, but I need to come from the pivot point first of who I am, the power or power that I do have and then go forward. Right. Otherwise I'm, I'm not even working with what I have. don't even draw from the reservoir.

of greatness that I've pulled together. mean, if, if I'm just holding my physical body together, even just being here on planet earth is a success. That's success. So now I just want to do better with my success. So that's the, I did that preamble just to say, that's the baseline to start with. Okay. Let's not focus on the, all the bad stuff yet. Let's say, okay, I'm pretty okay. You know, I'm, I'm able to get around. I can articulate, I can.

do work, you know, all this good stuff. Okay. Now let's talk about the parts that I want to release and replace. And so that energy of release, as a matter of fact, there's probably some ⁓ links in the bottom that they have for the technique workshop called embrace workshop. And it goes through all these techniques. And one of them is called the release technique, you know, and we usually do it as a team. And when you're in person,

But we've devised it for that. can do it by yourself, right? ⁓ great. That release technique. But the point is, is that there's things that I have in my life that I'm not burdened with. I just am dealing with it or working with it. I can release it and replace it. Wow. And so if I want that.

To give that empower energy. want to receive that empower energy. It also means that I need to be willing to release the stuff that doesn't work with that. Right. As we were talking about earlier and say, okay, if I'm going to be someone who wants to be free or I want to do this, or I want to be abundant, right. Or I want to have that good relationship that I need to go in and say, all right, are all my ideas and concepts in accord with that?

Is the orchestra of all the thoughts and feelings I have in harmony with a good relationship. Is all my thoughts and feelings in harmony with abundant life. If not, then all I need to do is say, okay, well, I've got stuff that does work and say, these pieces here aren't working for me. I need to release that and replace it.

So I know that's a little bit of a long thing, but that was what I wanted to get to. Yes. What I hear you saying, tiger is I have to unload my baggage. Yeah. So there go. There we go. And, what no longer serves where I'm at now and what moving forward. I think that's what I really noticed with a lot of people that we've worked with is that a lot of people hold on to things and it's hard to let go of and release what no longer fits for them.

So as you know, every single day, every single second, every single minute were different. And so I'm not the same person I was two seconds ago and neither are you. And so in recognizing as your life moves forward and you're in a different place energetically in a different place of maybe who you're with or the experiences you're having releasing what no longer serves you is such a wonderful thing. I mean, I'm always about less is more, right, Tom?

Cause I'm like, get rid of crap. I don't want all this stuff in the house. Less is more energetically. So as you're talking about concepts and things that we're holding onto, releasing those also gives your soul space to breathe. it. God. You know, two things that occurred to me and one of them, the first thought that I had was how, why do I keep, ⁓ trying to prove a concept

that's not working. Yeah, I have an intellectual concept about something and I just keep living these patterns. And if you've ever noticed that you go, you know, this has come up for me before, I don't almost want to admit it. But I have to admit it to myself that this pattern, ⁓ say money, you know, say like you go through money. And for some reason,

You don't want to look at the money. I've had that experience. I don't want to look at it. I don't want to find out it's not enough or it's I get surprised or my wife spent too much. And of course, that's my opinion right at the time and vice versa. So like we all relate to this, you know. So why do I keep, you know, holding back on my communication? So why do I keep trying to almost prove something I picked up?

in my first seven years, like I want to avoid conflict, always avoid conflict. So anyway, those are some, you know, foods for thought. But you know, as I'm if I'm patient with myself, and we can have a little laugh about it, because think about it, the best comedians are the ones who talk about their troubles that everybody can relate to. And we just have to laugh about it. Because it's so universal. What do think about that? Well, I think that that feels like let's wind this down.

wind it down, wind it up, wind it. Yeah. So the, guess the wrap up for me on that particular one is, know, there's a concept out there called reincarnation. never heard of that. But you know, my past life was Deja Vu experience. I think I've word before. The, people bring that up to me, I'm, I'm very quick to ask them,

Are you bringing yesterday's bad habits into today? That's my question to them. And I asked that of myself, like when I, when I don't feel great, I, can track it down. I'm bringing yesterday into today because I can do anything I want with it. I'm empowered to do that. I'm not, I'm not, I can continuing that energy and I haven't released it. So.

That's that energy of I am reincarnating. You're making that port. I'm really having that reincarnation of the same thing over and over and over again. Yeah. Groundhog day until I change it. Right. And that and that is what they call in the business fear of success. There's something that wants to keep me from moving forward. It's an old idea that I have about myself. I don't want to release this old concept I have about myself for fear of something that I might.

have to move forward or I might lose friends or I might something might, might, might, right? It's the future. So coming back home to what do I really want and need because that's empowering when I come back to that feeling. And that brings me to the last piece is that we talked about the keyword qualify. You qualify.

You qualify for being empowered. You qualify for success. You qualify to be free. You qualify just by being here. You pass that test, right? So you already qualified for the job. I don't, that's why I was saying I'm perfect for what I come to do. You qualify. So how empowering is that? That is the ultimate of empowering. Yeah. And it's just recognizing how am I getting in my own way?

to keep me from feeling happy and free or empowered. Yeah, and I guess for myself, my my final wrap up would be that each of us has the opportunity to step into this energy of feeling, being and expressing empowerment in your life. And recognizing the sooner a soul and a person recognizes that this is within them, the greater and the more expansive their whole in

life will be and how much more fulfillment they will feel in what they're doing. Yeah, and it's one step at a time, you know, be patient with yourself. I'm patient with myself. I try to be patient with myself. See, now I'm trying. word comes up a lot for you, patience. It's good. Patient lately. And patience with my impatience. That's right. When it's not impatient, I'm impatient. And having patience with Teresa's impatience sometimes is another. Come on, you know.

All right. So is that a good wind up there? yeah, I guess my windup is that ⁓ to empower all these key things that we talked about are key. That I don't need some big pedigree or some big fancy piece of paper to tell me that I'm can do what I've come to do. ⁓ It's great to be organized. Great to be organized. But the truth is, is I have everything I need to give of myself.

And to be happy and free. And you can start at any time. That's right. Right now. any age. I haven't lost anything that is such the confusion that I've somehow missed my timing. What a bunch of crap. Or that I have to be forgiven. And you know, I am forgiven. I can start now feeling empowered. So we hope this episode left you with a bit of feeling of empowerment.

on this summer series and our spiritual perspective discerning news. We look forward to bringing you more insights next week and sharing with you soon. Have a great day. Hasta la vista, baby.