reclaiming outsourced power
For most of my life, I’ve unconsciously given my power away.
I’ve projected it onto mentors, spiritual teachers, male authority figures… onto anyone I perceived as more ahead, more enlightened, more worthy than me. And every time I reached out, trying to be seen, trying to be recognized as powerful, intuitive, or gifted, and they didn’t respond exactly the way I hoped: I spiraled into shame, self-doubt, and into an endless loop of trying harder to prove myself.
It became a vicious cycle of wanting to be affirmed, getting rejected or ignored, then feeling unworthy and blaming myself. Like I had done something wrong, or like I wasn’t enough.
I can see now that this wasn’t just a surface-level pattern.
This was a deeply embedded survival strategy:
If I outsource my power to someone else, I don’t have to fully be responsible for it.
If I make them the authority, then I don’t have to claim my own.
grief around the survival strategy
There’s a dizzying grief in realizing how much of my life I’ve spent dimming my truth to try to earn love. How many of my gifts were never nourished, and how instead my energy was redirected into survival. I wasn’t encouraged to create, or sing, or rest, or be messy.
I was expected to achieve.
To be “the best.” To perform.
To hold it all in and berate myself for “not being grateful enough” while being so, so disconnected from my internal sense of purpose and what really fulfilled me.
So yeah… there’s grief here.
There’s grief for the version of me who could’ve grown up in a home where my sensitivity and creativity were celebrated, not suppressed. Where my boundaries were respected. Where I wasn’t beaten for being emotional, or dismissed for not fitting the mold.
Where would I be in life if I had been nurtured in the way I needed as a child?
But that’s not how it went.
And I’m not here to live in the past.
the power of present moment awareness
I’m here now, learning to sit with the sinking ache in my chest without allowing my mind to run a rat wheel making it mean something bad about me.
I’m learning that when I get caught up in trying to “prove” myself, in any and all of the different facets of my life, it’s simply my younger self trying to survive the only way they ever knew how.
And instead of bypassing that part of me or trying to hustle over it, I’m choosing to slow down.
To breathe, and say,
“I see you.
You didn’t do anything wrong.
You just wanted to be loved.”
This is what integration looks like.
It’s not some polished version of healing, where I snap my fingers and all of the pain is immediately resolved, forever, and perfectly.
Instead, it’s a messy, honest, deeply embodied process of returning to myself, over and over again.
The process centers around reconnecting to the part of me that still wants someone else to say “you’re powerful” and instead, saying it to myself and making space to allow it to land.
It’s just energy, and moving it is just a matter of detaching from the mental narrative and allowing my body to do what it already knows how to do.
De-identifying from the mental narrative and recognizing the thoughts and emotions are NOT ME, but instead just something that arises in my conscious awareness, has been key in staying grounded while facilitating this energetic movement.
Ultimately, I don’t need a spiritual mentor to tell me I’m worthy.
I don’t need 10,000 followers to prove that I’m sharing value.
I don’t need to “achieve” anything to be allowed to exist in peace.
I am powerful.
I am enough.
I can let go.
reflections for your process
Here are some reflection questions for you in your own process:
Do you notice places where you outsource your power?
What stories or systems taught you to do that?How can you bring love and compassion to the part of you who’s still searching?
Where are you ready to reclaim what you once gave away?
If you’re currently navigating a shedding, reclaiming, or energetic recalibration, I’m currently offering a few free energetic alchemy sessions in exchange for a short testimonial.
These sessions are intuitive, somatic, and gently potent, designed to support you in regrounding in your body, your energy, and your power.
Receive biweekly hand-crafted love letters designed to inspire, empower, and uplift your creative practice - straight to your inbox:
