A Deeper Dive on the Power Awakening Program

Calling those ready to realize their soul's purpose and come fully alive.

We just wrapped up three short testimonial videos featuring last year’s cohort of the Power Awakening Program. I am so excited to share them with you here!

First, the main promo tells the overarching story of what people came for, what they received, and for whom they would recommend this experience:

Second, this video focuses on the specific transformations people got through the program. The stories shared here encapsulate the central strategy and philosophy of our work at Starlight Leadership: Embracing our darkness to embody our light. (More detail and background on that concept below.)

Finally, this third video showcases what our participants found to make Power Awakening unique. Two central themes emerged: 1) the program’s ability to effectively bridge the practical with the mystical, and 2) the power of community — a special group of high-achieving and soulful people giving themselves completely to a transformational process within the structure of a skillfully held container.

I’m filled with joy, gratitude and awe by the remarkable sentiments shared in these videos. Thank you so much to all those who contributed! An extra special shout out to Marie Janicek, who not only contributed her own testimonial but led the charge on this whole project — from conducting the interviews to editing and producing the videos themselves.

Applications for Power Awakening 2023 are open now through May 15! See the bottom of this newsletter for details.

---

Why I Created Power Awakening

About a decade ago, I was deeply lost, anxious and depressed. I longed so deeply to create a life full of meaning and purpose, and to feel fully ALIVE. In the throes of my suffering and doubt, I began to wonder whether that was even possible.

Luckily, I found my way onto a vision quest with Animas Valley Institute. In the depths of a redrock canyon in southern Utah, I began my healing journey and experienced a spiritual awakening.

But in the wake of that quest, I landed right back in my old life and old identity. I tried as best I could to hang onto the magic I’d experienced in that canyon, but the inertia of my old self and old life got the best of me.

I lacked the tools, community, awareness and guidance to actually integrate and embody the full power of that sacred experience.

Long story short, I ended up retreating back into my pre-quest life path for a few more years. Eventually, I built up enough courage (and experienced enough dissatisfaction) to motivate myself to take another shot at pursuing my soul’s dream.

I dedicated myself to the pursuit of any and all experiences, modalities and ways of being that could reconnect me to that sense of being fully awake, alive and on purpose. I forged my own trail, and was blessed to encounter some world-class teachers and tools along the way.

It was a bumpy road at times, but I stuck with it and found my way. Today, I can say with confidence and joy that not only is it possible to create a life full of meaning and purpose, and to feel fully alive… I am doing it!

I created Power Awakening to share what I’ve learned and help others find their way, too. This program pulls together the most powerful and effective tools and practices that I’ve unearthed in the past decade.

While I wouldn’t change my journey for the world — it was exactly what I needed to get me to where I am — I can look back and see how I might have spent a lot less time and a lot less suffering to make it here.

Power Awakening is designed to help others travel the territory I’ve traveled in a much shorter amount of time.

In the first half of the program leading up to the quest, Power Awakening builds in all of the preparatory and community-building work to get the transformational juices flowing and the container strong. By the time participants go out onto the land for their quest, the initial layers are already peeled back. They are open, primed and ready for a full-blown mystical experience — perhaps even an encounter with their soul.

After the quest, the program builds in a process of landing and integration, so that participants get well supported in transmitting that magic back into their former lives (or at least in beginning that process, which lasts a lifetime, in a good way). They get to learn and practice with powerful, applicable tools to stay in contact with their light on a day-to-day basis and to overcome the inevitable obstacles that threaten to intimidate them back into their smaller, less powerful, more conforming old selves.

Finally, the program provides participants with a community of fellow travelers who see them deeply, have experienced their light, and can walk alongside them through the mysterious, treacherous, and thrilling journey ahead.

As any of my clients will tell you, I certainly don’t have all the answers. I’m in this never-ending learning journey alongside all of them, and all of you — continually experimenting, failing, succeeding, falling down and getting back up again… and simply doing my best to pass on what I’ve learned.

I’m honored to offer my most potent learnings thus far with the world through Power Awakening. And I’m so excited to see where this journey wants to take us next.

Photo credit: NASA

---

To Embody Your Light, You Must Embrace Your Darkness

When I say “darkness,” I mean inner darkness. Shadow, fear, pain, discomfort… any place inside ourselves that ego doesn’t want us to go.

As humans, we have ego identities. It’s the “small self” that the wisdom traditions teach us to transcend. Our personality. 

The ego identity is not a bad thing. It’s an important and valuable part of our being that allows us to function and act in the world. In the early stages of life, building a healthy ego is a critical developmental milestone.

Yet once we reach adulthood, the adolescent ego gets in our way. This is because it operates primarily in service of itself. 

The truth of who we really are is something far beyond the ego. As such, an ego operating primarily in service of itself prevents us from unfolding into our full authenticity and magnificence.

We don’t want to get rid of the ego — we just want to help it evolve. 

We want to allow the younger, smaller version of our “self” to die so we can encounter the deeper magical truth of who we really are, and put down new roots in that much more fertile and expansive soil. 

Then we rebuild a more mature and powerful ego identity whose purpose is to share that deeper magic — our light — with the world. 

I’ve found the most efficient and effective way to traverse this territory is to intentionally turn toward and embrace our darkness. It undermines the ego's delusions and guides us into wholeness. It opens us to the deeper mystery of who we really are. It becomes the pathway to discovering and embodying our gifts and our light.

That’s the process that created the results you saw in the How I Transformed In Power Awakening testimonial video above.

---

For A Deeper Dive: Wild On Purpose Podcast

I’ve shared this podcast episode previously, but want to share it here again because the conversation is so relevant to the content of this newsletter.

Kelly and I explore what it means to have a soul, how we can get in contact with it, and how that process helps us transcend the inherent limitations of our smaller selves and hollow conceptions of traditional success.

I share in depth about my own soul journey and the process that led me to this point — all stepping stones on the path toward the creation of Power Awakening.

The episode is a lot of fun, and many people close to me have shared that it helped them get a new and even deeper understanding of my path. Enjoy!

02. Brooks Barron ~ Soul Initiations: Claim Your Darkness & Step into Your Light

---

Now Enrolling for Power Awakening 2023!

At Starlight Leadership, we help successful, influential, and entrepreneurial visionaries discover their soul's purpose and unleash their full aliveness — in other words, embody their light — by embracing their darkness and coming home to their true self.

Power Awakening, our flagship group program, is an initiatory rite of passage that guides up to 10 participants through a psychospiritual death and rebirth process. It is designed to enable and accelerate what author Bill Plotkin calls The Journey of Soul Initiation.

The program guides participants through 3 key stages of transformation:

1. Identify and shift key ego patterns that are keeping you stuck in a smaller, less developed, and less powerful version of yourself.

2. Ceremonially die and be reborn through an 8-day vision quest on which you have the opportunity to make contact with the magical and mysterious energy of your soul.

3. Leave the program having integrated the gifts you received on your quest, holding an early but potent understanding of your unique zone of genius, and carrying a powerful set of well-practiced tools to support you on the lifelong journey of embodying your light.

The next cohort runs May 31 through September 6, with quest dates July 16-23 near Aspen, CO. Applications are open through May 15.

Know someone who might be a fit to join us this summer? Please send them our way.

Interested in the possibility of joining the program yourself? Hit reply to this email and let’s explore if it’s the right moment for you to undertake this journey.

Learn more and apply here.

---

As always, thanks for reading.

With love, darkness, and light,

Brooks