When I was in my twenties—a few decades ago—I read Gary Zucav’s book, The Seat of the Soul—a spiritual classic.
Zucav’s explanations of the soul, authentic power, intuition, spiritual relationships, intention, and more, inspired me to formulate an overall intention, to be in alignment with my soul and authentic power. Not a small feat for a lifetime, yet a meaningful one.
Through the years and into current times, when powerless feelings hiding in my subconscious become too loud to ignore or a body ache just won’t let up, I choose to do inner work.
Inner work involves meeting with distressing, uncomfortable thoughts and emotions such as anger, sadness, and unacknowledged fears. Honestly, it’s a bit of an ugly process. Shedding an old identity requires courage, vulnerability, Kleenex, and a trusted practitioner, and the benefits far exceed the temporary discomforts. Benefits include developing spiritual maturity and authentic power that brings a lightness to the heart, mind, and body, vitality, genuine happiness, and creativity.
Authentic Power
“Authentic power is when we align our thoughts, emotions, and actions with the highest part of ourselves, we are filled with enthusiasm, purpose, and meaning. Life is rich and full. We have no thoughts of bitterness. We have no memory of fear. We are joyously and intimately engaged with our world.” Gary Zucav, The Seat of the Soul
When your soul realizes that your personality is not aligned with your soul and authentic power, you’ll receive a misalignment signal, a blip on your consciousness radar screen. The signal comes in the way of an ongoing discomfort, irritation, sadness, anger, numbness, crises, or accident and serves as an invitation.
The invitation is to shift from the mind’s thinking, analyzing, masculine energy and, instead, soften into the feminine energy. Feminine energy restores balance when you give yourself permission to feel painful feelings with compassionate support. When felt, they dissipate. You loose the subconscious triggering reactions they held over you, and you can walk into neutrality.
Neutrality and Forgiveness
Wisdom from Lena Stevens, shaman and astrologer in her December 2025 energy forecast newsletter from www.ThePowerpath.com, offers insight into neutrality and forgiveness:
Neutrality comes from true acceptance of a current situation, leading to a lack of judgement, resistance and disappointment. Forgiveness is also a big element of getting to neutrality. Achieving neutrality does not make the situation right. It simply diffuses the energy around it, freeing you up to use it for something else.
Forgiveness is an energy that releases the debt of “you owe me,” whatever that is. As much as you hold another person or situation in debt to you, you are stuck there too. The law of karma is that all will be balanced in the end, however the timing of it may be out of your control. This is where you have to trust spirit that all choices and experiences were meant to be, and there are no mistakes. So first and foremost, forgive yourself so you can come to a place of neutrality about your past.
The freedom that comes with finding neutrality will allow you to connect more deeply with your heart and what you truly desire in life and then to project that through intention to the universe for manifestation.
A good mantra for situations that are uncomfortable is “this too shall pass” A good mantra for resistance and judgment is “it is what it is.” You will free yourself to receive more love, joy, clarity, and ease, and align to your heart, creativity, and right path.
Inner Work and Spiritual Growth
Inner work provides freedom from fear and a refreshing shift in perspective. When the uncomfortable, noisy blip dissolves—through dedicated perseverance and patience—you can choose to redirect your attention to your enthusiasm again.
According to Zucav, who I’m paraphrasing from his 2025 Wisdom Wednesday newsletters:
The first step toward spiritual growth is to acknowledge and feel your emotions even the painful ones. Painful emotions, anger, jealousy, resentment, originate in the frightened parts of your personality… Suffering arises when the frightened parts of your personality perceive themselves as powerless.
Emotions are messengers, not enemies. Yet your first instinct may be to push them away or blame others for them. When you begin to see emotional pain as an invitation to explore your inner world, you step onto the path of creating authentic power.
You discover that the pain is not here to punish you, but to show you where you are out of alignment with your soul… When you choose to face it, learn from it, and act with intention, transformation begins.
Common Human Emotions
Because the first step toward spiritual growth is to acknowledge and feel your emotions, I’m offering a list of human emotions that we all experience. Understanding why they form in our consciousness may be helpful. Each emotion has an energy and a purpose. I discovered a YouTube presentation by a Canadian therapist, Nadia Addesi, and I appreciated her concise explanation of these common emotions:
Anger – builds when something challenges your values, disrespects your boundaries, disrupts your sense of justice. Instead of letting it take over, turn it into change.
Overthinking – is your brain searching for control in uncertainty. Trust that you can handle what comes instead of exhausting yourself trying to control it.
Frustration – is the feeling of being stuck between effort and outcome. It’s a sign that something isn’t working. Either shift your approach or shift your expectations.
Grief – is love with nowhere to go. Let yourself feel it. Trying to push grief away only makes it feel heavier, and everything feels harder.
Fear – is a sign that your mind is trying to protect you. But, not everything unfamiliar is dangerous. Learn to tell the difference between a real threat and discomfort that could lead to growth. Ask, “Is this action unsafe or is it just unfamiliar?”
Sadness – is your mind trying to slow down to catch up with what happened. Letting yourself feel sadness isn’t weaknesses. You need to process it in order to move on from it.
Boredom – is unused creative energy. It’s not that there’s nothing to do, it’s that your brain is craving something meaningful. It’s honestly a signal to move, and not just doing anything but to make you do what makes you feel awake and alive.
Guilt – is your mind trying to repair something that felt wrong. It’s not meant to punish you. It’s meant to help you align with your values and make things right. So, own what you can, apologize if you need to, and make choices that feel true to you moving forward.
Shame – is the feeling that who you are is wrong, not just the thing you did. It builds when you’re met with rejection instead of understanding. Don’t hide from it. Challenge the story that it came from.
Disappointment – is what you feel when reality doesn’t match what you were hoping for. It can shatter trust, or it could start making you reach for what you want. Don’t pretend that it didn’t matter. Name it and move through it.
Disgust – is your body’s instinct to pull away from what feels dirty, unsafe, or wrong. It’s evolved to protect you, but it doesn’t just react to physical things. It can also show up when things go against your values or if you’ve learned to see something as bad. It’s a warning, built like every other emotion, it needs context. Pause and ask yourself what exactly feels off or disgusting here?
Jealousy – is the fear of losing something that feels important to you. It shows up when connection feels uncertain or threatened. You don’t need to suppress it. You need to try to understand what it’s trying to protect. Use jealousy as a signal and ask yourself, what do I need to feel secure, and connected again?
Envy – isn’t just about wanting what someone else has. It’s about feeling like you can’t have it. Instead of being stuck in that comparison spiral, ask yourself, what’s stopping me from believing that I can create this for myself too?
Anxiety – is your body bracing for something that it can’t predict or control. It’s your nervous system starting from a perception of danger even when there’s nothing there that could harm you. You don’t need to silence it. You need to show it that you’re safe now. Start with your body. Slow your breath. Be present and let your system learn that this moment is different.
Resentment – is the buildup that happens when your needs go unheard for too long. It grows when you stay silent to keep the peace. It’s not pettiness. It’s pain with nowhere else to land. Let it guide you back to your boundaries and back to your values.
Numbness – doesn’t mean that you’re not feeling anything. It’s your body hitting pause when everything feels like too much. It’s a nervous system in survival mode. To come back to your body, don’t force it. Start small. Try warmth. Try rhythm. Try sound. Let your body notice life in small doses again.
Loneliness – isn’t just about being alone. It’s about being unseen even when other people are around. It’s what you feel when connection is out of reach, but you need it so deeply. You need a connection that feels mutual, safe and real. Don’t isolate. Find it.
Hope – isn’t denial. It’s what survives after disappointment. It’s the quiet belief that something else is possible even if you don’t know it yet. It sounds like maybe there’s still a way. Let that be enough to try again.
Calm, Centered, and Loving
Transmuting emotional undercurrents has been an ongoing focus of my intuitive work. Those of you who’ve met with me have commented on feeling lighter and calmer at the end of the session. Yay! That’s the intention.
At an energetic level, you’ll make adjustments in your frequency capacity. Consequently, calm thoughts, centered attention, and loving feelings prevail.
For those of you pondering the experience of an intuitive session, here’s basically what happens:
We step into sacred space together through an intention that I set. Then, I connect intuitively with your soul and higher self to convey three significant themes you’re currently experiencing. Together, we work to identify and transmute the distressing, uncomfortable emotions in which you’re stewing. Then, utilizing consciousness healing techniques, we’ll transmute the uncomfortable emotions so instead, you can marinate in the infinite, loving energies that’ll sparkle and bubble up naturally from within you. You’ll also receive pertinent, encouraging assurances.
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, perhaps like when handling a tangled string of Christmas lights, this information about emotions and spiritual growth can provide clarity for sorting out your feelings and restoring your inner light and glow.
If you’re looking for a meaningful gift that contains essential truths of life, I recommend The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zucav.