Loyalty - Where is Yours?
by Pamelah Landers
Master Intuitive and Leadership Mentor
Loyalty. I'm pretty sure we all have visions, ideas, concepts and maybe even definitions of this word.
I grew up believing that loyalty is a positive thing. That one aspires to be "loyal." It's part of the family and church culture that surrounded me. It still holds a positive value for me in many ways, and in some ways not.
Loyalty has often felt like a grounded, solid earth beneath my feet. See the photo I took of Sedona in 2013.
Where I have ended up in this journey, now, is that my #1 loyalty is to me. To my self-sovereignty.
~ It's an ongoing journey as I regularly recognize where, outside of myself, I have given loyalty - mostly to survive, that is no longer serving me. Maybe it's even keeping me bound in a way I don't desire any more. Looking at where I'm attached to "what was" instead of "what is now."
~ It's an ongoing journey of permission to stand in my own relationship to self-love more than my relationship to other people's ideas or opinions of what love is. For example, listening to the voices that have defined my choices that aren't mine now. Or choices I made as a young person that are asking to be "matured" into my current adult life.
~ It's an ongoing journey of paying attention to "mind chatter" that doesn't feel good and most likely has been adopted from outside of me...and just stopping those repeated thoughts.
~ It's an ongoing journey of self-trust, self-reliance, deepening intuitive skill sets and asking for help so I know what I currently desire being loyal to - and not was true before now.
I've now done some releasing of being "loyal to"
~ silence
~ keeping secrets
~ the pain body put on me by culture and society
~ projections about "how to be a woman" from both a female and male perspective
~ family patterns that were lived to survive, but not thrive
~ styles of marketing that are "proven" to work for others
~ how my body needs to appear in order to be lovable
~ ancestral patterns to "stay safe" that aren't necessary in 2022
~ habits of thought around how money comes to me
~ trauma being re-ignited by experiences outside of me
~ hard work or working hard
And so many more.
Where are you giving loyalty that isn't serving you anymore? Are you willing to release it? Replace it with loyalty to your own self- sovereignty?
Here are some definitions of loyal and loyalty:
~ faithful to one's sovereign, government, or state: a loyal subject
~ faithful to one's oath, commitments, or obligations: to be loyal to a vow
~ faithful to any leader, party, or cause, or to any person or thing conceived as deserving fidelity: a loyal friend
~ characterized by or showing faithfulness to commitments, vows, allegiance, obligations, etc.: loyal conduct
Oxford Dictionary:
~ remaining constant in your support of somebody/something
One of the places over years I've examined is "vows" I've made that worked in circumstances at the time but are no longer true. An example is "vowing" loyalty to family systems that the male voices (father, brothers) are worth listening to more than the female voices (sisters, mother, sisters-in-law) at family gatherings as an adult. It may seem like a little thing. It happened organically. Not in a conscious way. Yet...I agreed by often being silent as I noticed was true with my mother and sisters. To end that loyalty, that vow, I moved away from my family of origin and established my voice in other ways so I gained confidence in my words, my sounds, my voice.
I've even discovered and shifted vows from other life times that seem to impact this life. One of those is as a "Lady of the Lake" during Druid times. The vow I took is to stay single so I could provide services for the Druids such as reading hands and using intuitive skills. I've been single in this life, never married. And I use intuitive skills and reading hands for many people. I discovered this in 2002 and soon after made a choice to stop dating because I was attracting "unavailable men." Duh! I wasn't available for relationship because of this vow that was still impacting me. Something in me desired a shift so I could be available, emotionally, to myself. That vow had to end. What a journey!
Synonyms for "Loyal"
~ faithful ~ true
~ true-hearted ~ tried and true
~ true-blue ~ devoted
~ constant ~ steadfast
~ fast ~ staunch
~ dependable ~ reliable
Some of these synonyms make me so uncomfortable, repelled really like "true blue" and "tried and true." Where is the freedom? Yikes! I do resonate with reliable and dependable.
You may want to consider these questions:
~ Where are you being loyal and it feels stifling, limiting, constraining?
~ Where are you feeling loyalty and it's not serving you now?
~ Where are you committed to something that has completed itself and is no longer working such as a relationship? Belief? Expectation? Behavior?
Paying to attention to "automatic loyalty" to see if it's valuable to you may serve you well. In your own timing. In your own way. In your own relationship with self-sovereignty.
Love,
Pamelah