In this piece
Has anyone ever told you how powerful you are? Maybe it was in a reading. Maybe someone at a workshop looked you in the eye and said you’re stepping into your power, you’re finally getting your power back.
Did you ever stop and ask what that actually meant?
We use a lot of language in spiritual communities that we nod along to without really dropping into it. Power is one of the big ones. Think about how many books and courses promise to make you more powerful. For the sake of what?
01The Definition That Felt Off
If power means pushing your energy out so you can get what you want, or molding the world into the shape you prefer, no wonder the word feels foreign to so many sensitive, empathic people. Something in you knew that definition was off.
It didn’t make sense to me for the longest time either. Be more powerful. Okay, so I can make more money? Attract the relationship I want? Even “let me be more powerful than the darkness” is a manipulation when you look at it honestly. It’s me trying to change something because I don’t like the way it is.
02Source and Supply
Over the last few months I’ve been in what I can only call a cocoon. Life keeps swirling around outside it. But where I draw my source and supply from has narrowed to one place, which is my relationship with God. It isn’t a partner or my bank account or even my sense of purpose.
Whenever something pushed up against that container, asking me to be a certain way for it, I’d gently keep it outside. With reverence, but outside. What’s grown in there is an intimacy with the divine I’ve never known before.
Why do so many of us love roses? The rose doesn’t have to do anything for us. It just is. That’s what this has felt like.
03Once Love Is Given
Part of that refinement has been letting go of what I’ve held against people, my parents included. There was alcoholism and there was violence, and for years a part of me kept saying I need to heal this, I would never have done that to my kids.
Sitting with it now, what I see is how much love they poured into me with what they had. They didn’t have to give me anything. And they gave me so much.
Same with my ex-wife and old partners. Once love is given, it can never be taken back, no matter what happened after. Then there’s the stranger who bought me a cup of coffee. The person who called me out on my bullshit when I wasn’t willing to look at it. All of it has been refining me, and all of it has been bringing me into my power.
04What Power Actually Is
Here’s how I define it now. Power is your capacity to hold light. Think of it as voltage.
Every time you raise your awareness, you turn the voltage up. Every time you re-pattern “I’m not worthy” into “I’m so grateful I’m worthy,” you turn it up again.
You’ve probably noticed the side effects. You know who’s calling before the phone rings. Synchronicities keep showing up. You think about something and there it is, and you assume Amazon is reading your mind. A lot of the time, it isn’t. You might be seeing repeated numbers, having dreams that feel like messages, or sensing something big is shifting even though you can’t name it yet.
That’s you becoming powerful. And this kind of power doesn’t take anything from anybody. It gives everything to everybody.
Isn’t that a power you’d actually want?
05You Can’t Lose It
The old fear goes like this. If they become powerful, I have to guard myself. If I’m not careful, I’ll give my power away.
You couldn’t give your power away if you tried. The ego believes you can. You can hand your decisions to someone else for a while, and they’ll borrow it for as long as you let them. It’s still yours to reclaim whenever you’re ready.
One candle lights the next without losing any of its own flame. That’s how it works. And the part of us that says “I’ll take care of myself later, as long as they’re okay” is a manipulation too. Usually it’s us trying to heal someone else so we don’t have to feel uncomfortable.
When light walks into a dark room, the room stops being dark. The light didn’t fight anything. It just did what light does.
06Stop Asking Someone to Pour Your Cereal
Imagine asking your mom to pour the Kellogg’s into your bowl every morning. You know how to do it. It would take fifteen minutes to learn, and then you’d never have to wait on anyone again.
A lot of us do that spiritually. We keep asking the same question and wait for someone outside of us to answer it. Many of you reading this have done deep work for years. Your guides want you to start owning what you’ve already gathered.
So try this. Take your journal and sit in front of a mirror. Look into your left eye. Invite your higher self into the conversation, and invite your little one too. Then ask, “What do you want me to know right now?”
Write down whatever comes first. Don’t judge it or filter it. This is you being your own best channel. If your inner child suddenly starts using words no six-year-old knows, that’s your mind talking. With your guides, let it get poetic or even cosmic. Just set the intention that whatever shows up is for your highest good.
If you’ve always thrown a 70-mile-an-hour fastball, you’ll never know you can throw 90 until you try.
07Divinity Is Waiting for You
Years ago, on my birthday, I was on a dock in Bimini at sunrise, and I had a full-blown conversation with God. Nobody can tell me otherwise.
I was sobbing and giving everything back. My house, my money, my friendships, even my daughters. None of it was mine. It was all on loan so I could experience love through it.
About an hour and a half in, something flipped. I said, “But wait. There’s more. I’m ready for more.” And God met me right there. It was like, I’ve been waiting for you. Now we can really start playing.
That’s the invitation. Divinity is waiting for your yes.
So stop asking where you’re still not enough. Ask where the thing you want is already showing up. You want more love? Look at where you’re already receiving it. Money feels tight? Look at what’s paying for the electricity and the Wi-Fi you’re reading this on.
What you seek, you already are.
08When You Feel Pulled
When you catch yourself judging, pointing the finger, or sliding into comparison, pause. Ask where you’ve created that separation inside yourself first.
Then breathe. Take a long inhale and hold at the top for a few seconds. Take a long exhale and hold at the bottom. Do it a few more times until you’re back in your own field instead of riding somebody else’s wave.
If it helps, say it out loud. I’m safe. I’m safe to be who I am. I’m safe to be loved.
09Take the First Step
We’re so worried about step ten that we never take step one. And you can’t jump to step ten anyway, because who you become during the first nine steps shapes who you are when you get there.
If it feels like something is building and nothing is happening yet, you’re not wrong. The dam is filling. Sometimes the universe says not yet, and that little bit of extra polishing makes what comes through ten times wider.
In the meantime, remember that everything you do is spiritual. Brushing your teeth is spiritual. Paying your bills is spiritual. Being pissed off at somebody is spiritual too.
It’s you and God. Nobody else can be your source and supply. So the next time someone tells you how powerful you are, you’ll know what they mean. Now choose to be as powerful as you’re ready to be.