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.