Balance yourself out
No one’s perfect — we’re certainly not — and there’s always a way to improve your relationships and how you react to situations. Today we want to share the concept of Shakti Leadership with you because it will help with both those things in addition to helping you lead others, become a
Nilima Bhat coined the term Shakti, meaning an intelligent power of existence. Shakti itself comes from within, is unlimited, cannot be taken away, and lasts. With some simple balancing you can strengthen your positive traits and work on your more negative traits.
Why should you care about Shakti?
Because it teaches you sustainable self-love, to have more positive relationships, and to be happier on the daily. The opposite of Shakti is Privilege, which comes from other people, is finite, can be taken away, and fails; aka — unhappiness.
How does one achieve Shakti?
In order to achieve Shakti leadership you must have an equilibrium of female (yin) and male (yang) traits. It’s important to be conscious, meaning show self-mastery and selflessness and integrated, meaning express healthy competitive nature of masculine and collaborative values and behaviors of feminine. A conscious leader, a Shakti leader, is present, whole and flexible (the capacity to change).
It is expected that men and women have both masculine and feminine traits. Try not to get caught up on the gender piece of this. While there are traditionally gender-based traits, Shakti is about everyone reaching balance between the traits. Everyone, no matter their gender, should have an equal balance of male/female traits.
What are feminine and male traits?
Once you are aware of famine and masculine traits you may use them to help you create an action plan with the polarity map, by Barry Johnson, in order to achieve Shakti. The polarity map looks like this.
How do I use the Polarity Map to my advantage?
If you have a negative trait in either masculine or feminine you balance it out by taking an action step toward a positive trait of the opposite gender. For example, if you have a negative male trait such as arrogance you may choose to work on vulnerability. Humble yourself, open up to a friend. Your action step may be looking through old pictures from middle school, or learning from someone who’s accomplished more than you, for example. Likewise, if you have a negative female trait such as neediness you may choose to be more focused on yourself. You probably need more self love and ‘you time.’ The actions step may be taking a long bath with all the fixings, buying yourself flowers, or meditating. Why wait for someone else to take care of your needs? Some early signs of excessive feminine may be judgement and early signs of excessive masculine may be arrogance.
Once you find where you can improve in negative female and male traits it’s important to know that values unite and beliefs divide. In your life associate yourself with people that hold the same values and you will have rich relationships. Nilima Bhat suggests starting a group that holds the same value of constantly improving oneself. You can talk with other people about how they applied this theory to a situation that week. This way you will continue to grow.
Adapted from a post on hannahpatience.com.
