Embracing Initiations: How Shifts in Identity Lead to Personal Growth and Sovereignty

Long ago, in ancient cultures, rites of passage were performed for various transformations. You're probably familiar with the ones for birth, death, and weddings...but what about those everyday challenges? Business challenges? 

Here's the thing...

It's not a challenge. It's an initiation. 

These past 6-months, moving - again - just this time, into our dream home, I have faced one of the greatest initiations of my life as we have settled into a whole new level.

In this episode, I explore how initiations are not just limited to secret societies or occult practices but are deeply woven into our everyday lives.

From becoming a first-time parent to hitting a new income level in business, each initiation marks the beginning of something new and often involves challenges and discomfort. But, it's through these initiations that we grow, transform, and claim sovereignty over our lives.

Here are some key takeaways from the episode:

• 🦄 The Power of Initiations: Initiations signify a shift in identity and require letting go of the old. When you embrace these powerful moments of transition and self-discovery with reverence and gratitude, you generate a supernatural power to quantum leap (like we did with manifesting our dream house!)
• 🗓️ Every Day is an Initiation: Approach each day as a new beginning. Whether this is your morning ritual or your work routine, each day is an opportunity to be initiated even more deeply into BE-ing your most Sovereign Self. 
• 🏰 Claiming Your Space: Whether it's a new house or a new level of business, the process of claiming and initiating a new space creates an energetic shift in your environment. And, remember, you can never transform to your next level in the same environment that made you who you are. This doesn't mean you have to move, but you can move things, paint, de-clutter, remove, add-on, and in doing so create a shift. 
• 📈 Regulation Back to the 3D: Consciously choosing to grow and evolve requires expansion, and then regulation. The environment of your nervous system and your 3D body is just as important as your external environment so that you sustain operating at a new level. Can you regulate your nervous system to not kick you back to where you're familiar? 
• 😳 Embrace the Unknown: Growth is like being in a kiln or fire, where we willingly enter the unknown and surrender to the shaping process by the universe. I'll share with you a story from one of my mentors that literally transformed my entire subconscious perspective on this. 

Coming back to this podcast feels like coming home. Because, finally, I am home. 

I thank you in advance for being here, for listening, and for sharing this episode with someone who is going through their own initiation or challenge.

And stay tuned because we have a backlog of episodes comin' at ya...because this moment, this homecoming to Crown Yourself, while I could say is long overdue, I believe is all, actually in Divine Timing.

Transcript: 

Kimberly Spencer (00:00:07) - Welcome to the Crown Yourself podcast, where together we build your empire and transform your subconscious stories about what's possible for your business, body, and life. I'm your host, Kimberly Spencer, founder of Crown Yourself, and I'm a master mindset coach, best-selling author, and TEDx speaker, known to my clients as a game changer. Each week you get the conscious leadership strategies you need to help you reign with courage, clarity, and confidence so that you too can make the income and impact you deserve. Imagine this podcast as your royal invitation to step into your full potential and reign in your divine purpose. Your sovereignty starts here and your reign is now.

Hello, my fellow sovereigns and welcome back to the Crown Yourself podcast. I am your host, Kimberly Spencer, and I am so excited to be here with you today because these past six months have been an initiation and there have been many initiations, as I would say, over the past few years. And I think one of the keys to establishing and really claiming your sovereignty is this concept that really is an ancient concept of initiations.

Kimberly Spencer (00:01:26) - Now, you may have heard the term in a negative or witchy or occult or sort of terminology of initiation. So I've brought up the definition just in case we all need a refresher. The definition of an initiation. Yes. Number one, it is the action of admitting someone into a secret or obscure society or group, typically with a ritual. But number two, it's also the action of beginning something. Motherhood is an initiation. We go on a period of maternity leave. Puberty is an initiation. It's supposed to be an initiation into adulthood, where we go from being a child and operating as a child into this adulthood. In the Jewish faith, you have a bat mitzvah or a bar mitzvah as your initiation to say that at the age of 13, you are now a man or a woman. There are many rituals in society that have had initiations, and I think a part of reclaiming our sovereignty is honoring that which we are being initiated into. And so often we don't celebrate that. We just kind of charge through, especially the high performers, the high achievers, which I know all of you are like or recovering high achievers like I am, where it's like we've had cheated a lot.

Kimberly Spencer (00:02:50) - We've done a lot. But if you've just steamrolled through everything, then there is a sacredness and a reverence for that which you have achieved that has not yet been fully embodied. And for me, I constitute an initiation as an embodiment where your nervous system is now regulated at a new level, where you are able to operate with a new level of energy and performance. But that doesn't mean achievement. That just means a new level of sustained energy. So, for example, when going into becoming a first-time parent, there is the initiation phase of that newborn phase of exhaustion, of dealing with the late nights and the crying and the feeding and the ups and downs and all that. And that is an initiation phase into parenthood. The same is true with being a business owner, with starting your business, with really making that decision. Because for me, when I did my TEDx talk on decision-making and decision-making strategy and how to effectively decide it, I said that to decide means to cut off well.

Kimberly Spencer (00:04:05) - When you initiate yourself into something, whether it's parenthood, whether it is being a business owner, joining the corporate workforce, joining a college, joining a fraternity, a sorority, there are processes of initiations that are like, okay, now you are part of the group, now you are part of the tribe. And a lot of times in our achievement-oriented society for high performers, we forget those initiations. That doesn't mean that we're not going through them. We're just not having reverence for the moment of what we're going through. Because typically in an initiation there is some form of challenge. I mean, I never went to college, but I did go to frat parties and sorority parties down at UCLA. And there was an initiation for the sorority sisters and for the frat brothers to go into those fraternities and sororities. A similar thing is, I believe that that birth, that labor and giving birth to your child, is an initiation. It's an initiation process where you literally become a spiritual portal from the divine into the physical realm.

Kimberly Spencer (00:05:21) - And the fact that women have been able to do that for however long our human beautiful race has been on this planet. The fact that we can do, that is phenomenal. And that is an initiation process. There is the depth of the love of pushing something out of you that you find something, whether you've had a baby or not. There is something that when you create something and it comes. The rue du birth is the greatest metaphor for that initiation because there is pain, and there is labor involved. And so these past six months for me of buying our dream home, moving again, settling into our home, and making it ours, like that whole process was a complete initiation into the context of this home and in initiation because you're entering into the unknown, you're beginning something new is the definition of initiation connotes like the action of beginning something. And at the beginning of anything there, it is funky, it is awkward, it is weird, and it can be painful.

Kimberly Spencer (00:06:43) - I mean, especially if you've ever experienced actual labor, like when you first start experiencing contractions and you're like, Oh, oh, hey there. Hey. Wow. Okay. That was something. And it's the same as when we experience challenges and contractions in our business, in our relationships, when there is another level of initiation that is being required, especially like initiations, like moving in together or getting engaged or get choosing to get married. There is a level of commitment that of like an initiation process that comes with that. That comes with beginning something and starting to have to behave and begin in a new way of being. And because you're being in a new way, it is unfamiliar. You are falling on your face, you are taking missteps. You are figuring it out as you go. And so you're also looking at what is it that you have to let go of. Because a lot of times in any initiation there is an old identity which you now no longer have, and thus there is a grieving period, and thus there is a period of allowing yourself to surrender and be in that awkward newborn phase.

Kimberly Spencer (00:08:06) - When you are feeling and sensing and experiencing life in this whole new way. And not all initiations are created equal. Obviously, some are more intense than others. But of what? What if we approached each day as an initiation? What if you approached your morning ritual instead as an initiation and allowed for that act of a new beginning of choosing a new path? So recently I've been very open on my socials about kind of coming out of this grief coma, which, you know, having lost all the family members that I lost in the past couple of years and, you know, moving twice, moving countries first and foremost and then moving homes. Secondly, within one year that was a lot of transition. And with every major transition comes an initiation process because you are beginning something anew, you are transitioning, you are crossing over, there is a change, there is a transformation. And that's with every transformation. Just like going from not being pregnant to being pregnant, there is an initiation process of growth, of challenge.

Kimberly Spencer (00:09:19) - I mean, in the first trimester of pregnancy, you're like, there's morning sickness. There are all the funky things that are happening with your body. There are all these different experiences. The same is true with like the initiation. Oh my gosh. When Spike and I got married, there was just a different level of commitment that we experienced. Very different. And suddenly there was the initiation for me because I chose in this marriage to change my name. In my first marriage, I didn't. And that was actually quite telling for me as far as my level of commitment to the initiation of marriage was like for that first one. But for Spike, I was like, Yeah, I knew we were going to have kids together. I wanted them to have the same name. I didn't feel the need to carry on the McKenzie legacy, and I was no longer really branding myself as a McKenzie. I was very proud to kind of become one with the name of Spencer.

Kimberly Spencer(00:10:15) - And that initiation was a reclamation of this new identity as wife, which is different. It's a different identity. And that initiation was a lot of changes. I mean, I told Spike, I said, God forbid anything happened to us, but like, I am not changing my name back because that is a process. Like that is one that I do not want to go through again is there are so many documents that you need to change if you choose to do that. But that was an initiation that I was welcoming to because of the fact that I for many reasons, A because it just felt so gut and heart-centered and aligned, and B, because I knew we were going to have kids together and I wanted to have this like whole family name. And I was very proud of that. And that was my choice. That may not be everybody's choice. I know that's a lot of women today. That's not their choice. But that was mine. But that was an initiation process. Maybe it's combining finances, maybe it's having a joint bank account or a joint investment account, that that in itself is an initiation because there's the uncomfortable period of like, okay, let's open the portfolios and like look at our assets and oh, there's either like, oh my gosh, holy shit.

Kimberly Spencer (00:11:27) - Or like, oh, we got, we got some work to do. So there can be those initiations that have those growing pains. So much of life is beginning again and allowing for that constant rebirth, that death and resurrection of identity. And that is really a part of sovereignty, I believe, is when you can claim that then you are re-anointing and reappointing yourself as the leader of your life. I mean, you think of recently there was just a giant coronation for King Charles and that is a coronation is an initiation. It's an initiation for the king or the queen to be the leader of a country. And so it is within that initiation that there are certain rituals that are performed. So as you think through the initiations that you have experienced, like for me, the initiation was buying a house. And then we had some growing pains with the challenges of we'll share about in a future podcast about, you know, the process of that, how we manifested our dream home. But beyond that, it's like then once we manifested it and then it's like, Oh wait, holy shit.

Kimberly Spencer (00:12:41) - Like we did it like it's ours. And now it's that process of, okay, let's claim it as ours. Let's, you know, bring in the furniture. How do we want it to look? What's the design, what's the aesthetic? Was the vibe? What's the feel like? How do we make this truly feel? Like, what are the things that need to be fixed and the things that, you know, we maybe weren't noticed in the what's it called, the assessments that you do before you buy a house, losing the word at this moment. But that whole experience of what you know, claiming it and initiating the house into now are family because the location has energy, everything has energy. And so when we forget the initiation processes that we go through, whether it's initiating yourself into a new level of business like I remember when I hit my first six-figure year and I was initiated into a group called The Dames that is specifically and only for six and seven figure business owners and figure business owners.

Kimberly Spencer (00:13:40) - I was like this. I knew I was celebrating with a process. I knew I was like, I feel like I have made it because I could have the qualifications to join this community, whereas prior I hadn't. And so that for myself, I was like, I'm being initiated. When you reach a new income level, especially for women, like hitting six figures in your business, ladies like when you hit that you are being initiated into the top 15% of female-owned businesses because only 15% of businesses make over $100,000, 15% of female-owned businesses. Now, when you hit the $1 million marker, only 2% of female-owned businesses hit that, only 2%. So there's another initiation and then it just the percentage gets smaller and smaller into the billions and whatnot. So when you think of income level like initiations are the process, I like to think of it energetically as like lightning hitting your body. And because lightning is a form of energy. And so if your body doesn't allow or process or embody your nervous system doesn't regulate to that level that is required for an energy source to have that impact, then it kind of burns out and kind of fizzles and goes back to the lower level.

Kimberly Spencer (00:14:59) - It's kind of like a video game, but if you're able to face that challenge and push through and go through that initiation and feel through all those uncomfortable contractions and go through that labor, then suddenly you pass and you pass the test and it's not I don't like to think of it as a test because I don't think of it in terms of like educational standards of like, here's, you know, five-point assessment to your initiation. But it's really like it's an embodiment of a physiological somatic challenge that happens in your body that is part of the ritual where you are now operating and your nervous system has regulated to operate at a new level of energy and sustained energy. So the process of initiation requires your body to hold a greater container for energy. I heard a really great metaphor told by Lori Harder that I'm going to share with you here. And so there was a glass blower and he had all these types and sizes of beautiful bowls and vases and jars that he had made that were of glass.

Kimberly Spencer (00:16:04) - And one day this little jar of glass says, But I want to be that one. I want to be bigger. I want to be able to hold more. And the glass blower says, well, if you want to hold more and have more capacity to hold more, then you're going to have to go back into the kiln. I'm going to have to put you back in there and I'm going to have to reshape you and expand you, and you're going to have to go into the fire and the little glass. People thought of it for a moment and said, Yeah, yeah, that's what I want. And then so the glassblower accordingly said, okay, let's go into the kiln. And oh, it was hot and it was hard and it burned and scorched and it was stretched. And this little glass bowl was like, Gosh. But then it came out and started to cool and suddenly it realized it was bigger and that it could hold more and it had more capacity and it sat proudly on a new shelf at the level of the bigger bowls.

Kimberly Spencer (00:17:07) - And then from that new shelf, it recognized there's an even bigger bowl, there's an even bigger one I can grow even more. And so the little glass bowl, which is now a medium-sized glass bowl, said once again to the glass blower, I want to do it again. I want to be bigger. I want to be able to hold more. And once again, The Glassblower said it's going to require you to go back into the kiln and the medium-sized bulb said, But that was so hot, that was painful. That hurt. I was stretched. I thought I was going to break. I was in pain. And the glassblower says, Well, that's what it's going to take if you want to grow bigger. And so the choice is do you choose the initiation of going back into the kiln? Because what you want is on the other side of that initiation. And see, sometimes people don't pass their initiation rounds, sometimes people don't. It happens a lot of times in business where suddenly things get hard and things get challenging.

Kimberly Spencer (00:18:07) - And they instead go back to being the small glass bowl and like, you know what it was? It was more comfortable there. And that's okay. I'm not saying that there's a right or a wrong or a right size or a wrong size to be. There's just what you choose to be. But if you want to keep going to another level, it will require that initiation of going back into the kiln, going into the fire, having the labor pains, having the contractions. I mean, even in the story of Jesus, as I texted one of my clients the other day who was like, It's all coming. He's like, The money is coming. I feel it. It's like all of this work that I've done over all these years is finally happening. And I was like, Yes. I said, Because, you know, even in our three-D form, like it took Jesus a few days to come back. And he laughed at that because sometimes we've gone into the kiln, we're in the like, we've gone in and we're like ready to be like our souls or spirits are ready to be out on the other side.

Kimberly Spencer (00:19:04) - The 3D form still has to catch up and for me, how I interpret that is that as your nervous system has to regulate, you have to regulate to be able to sustain a new level of responsibility and a new capacity. It's like when I went from being, you know, in apartments and whatnot to owning a home and the management that comes into owning a home. And then beyond that, owning a home that also came with like two donkeys now three and six goats now three and three chickens, that basically says the same for a cat. Well, one cat now five. So like there was a level of and like going from an apartment to ten acres, like there was a level of a massive expansion of responsibility that I had to accept and that basically in, in Native American teachings like the land has to accept you back, The space has to accept you back. There is a dance with the space, with the land that it has to accept you. Now, according to our squash plant outside, it's accepted us because that squash plant is trying to take over the world.

Kimberly Spencer (00:20:19) - And there were certain animals that we chose that both Spike and I were like that energy of that funky goat that we called Grumpy. I was like, that, That ain't working for us. Like it was hostile and it was very beholden to the former owners. And I said, okay, like some goats got to go. And so now we have three goats that just love us and that just like want to play. And they love eating raisins and whatnot. But like there was a shift of like, what are the animals that accept our presence? What is the land going to say that's accepting of our presence? Of honoring the land that we've we've been blessed with and claiming that and having that mutual relationship where there is respect for it because it's new, it's new owners, new settlers on the space. And so claiming that the same mutual respect that the former owners had for the land was a process of initiation. Same with the house, the energy of the house.

Kimberly Spencer (00:21:19) - It's when you buy a house when you buy a home like there is an energy of claiming it as your own, which is replacing the energy because everything is energy, everything. And so there are still the vibrations in any home that you move into unless it's a brand new build that there is an energy of former, the former owners and there's a clearing of that that has that happens. In fact, one of my friends used to be a psychic. She is a psychic. She didn't used to be. She still has a psychic, but she used to be a site specifically for real estate where she would like clear out energy from houses based on a very famous house flipper. And so that that was what she would do is she would clear out the energy of the former owner so that the house could be profitable in the initiation of us growing into this house Like that was the foundation that I put above anything I put above the podcast. I even put it above my business, quite frankly, because for me, one of my core values is the safety and protection, and love of my family.

Kimberly Spencer (00:22:23) - And like that family is one of my top values. And so that piece is that I was like, I need to get them secure. I need to shift the energy and be present in the home, like being in that space. And I knew that that require certain parts of my business in certain aspects to either take a backseat or I had to delegate those roles out. And I did. And I am so happy that I did because it allowed me the space to grieve, to let go, to shift the energy, and now to reclaim the passage of that initiation and own this new space, this new energy, this new embodying it, this new regulated nervous system that's operating at a higher capacity. It required me to go through the kiln. So what is the kiln that you are choosing to go back into? What is the fire that you are choosing? Because everything is a choice, right? That's a decision to choose to grow, to choose to grow your business. And that's a conscious choice.

Kimberly Spencer (00:23:24) - Ideally, you make it consciously to choose to grow into a new financial circumstance, a new relationship, a new type of body. It's going to require a certain initiation into that next level. Are you willing? To allow your nervous system to adopt and accept the energy and the capacity going to stretch you so that you can hold the container of holding and having a beautiful, amazing relationship, of holding and having more wealth, more money, more income, more revenue. Are you willing to expand the container so that you can have more capacity? Because going into the kiln is what is required? And sometimes being in the kiln, being in the fire is choosing to go into the unknown and to not know the answer, to not know how. The glassblower, the source creator, God, the universe is shaping you and allowing herself to be in that funkiness of the unknown. And if you're willing to go in there and stay in the fire and stay through the process, then on the other side is her growth.

Kimberly Spencer (00:24:39) - On the other side, is that resurrection into a new identity? If this episode served you, please share it with a friend. Share it with a friend who may be going through an initiation, a challenge, a problem, or maybe even actual labor and the contractions they're in. But sharing this with one person would mean so much to me. You have no idea. I am so excited to be back, to be back with this podcast. We have a backlog and heaps of interviews that I am so excited to share with you of extraordinary queens who are just moving forward, going through initiations, and choosing a path that is even bigger, brighter, more beautiful, and stepping into their sovereign identity. As always, my fellow sovereigns on your throne. Mind your business because your reign is now. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If what you heard resonated with you. Be sure to subscribe and start creating a bigger impact now by sharing this with a friend. Just by doing that one simple act of kindness, you are creating a royal ripple to support more people in their sovereignty.

Kimberly Spencer (00:25:45) - And if you're not already following on social media, connect with me everywhere at crownyourself.now for more inspiration. I am so excited to connect with you in the next episode and in the meantime, go out there and create a body, business, and life that rules because today you crown yourself.