I’m going to talk about why it’s so scary for us to own our own power. What is that really about? After years of doing this work and really experiencing my own inner healing, I found some answers that might connect some more dots for you.
We hear about people that have addictions, lots of different kinds of addictions. We hear about eating disorders – addiction to food, alcoholism – addiction to alcohol, drug addiction, love addiction, codependency, sex addiction, addiction to another person, addiction to achievement, addiction to status, addiction to an ideal – all of these things are external power.
All of these things we’ve assigned our power to, we’ve given too much power to, and what happens is then they have power over us. And what’s interesting is you know… I say addiction, but there are so many different levels of doing this. And you know, I work a lot with codependency in my work and love addiction or symptoms of these things in my work and I just noticed that there is a common thread. There is a deeper reason.
We weren’t born into a society that’s emotionally intelligent, we just didn’t – we’re not. We don’t learn that in school. Our parents weren’t taught that and what I see is it’s all about emotion. It’s all about negative emotion, not ever being processed properly, not ever being validated properly. And when something happens to us in childhood, small or large usually before the age of eight, when we still think that everything we feel is who we are.
What happens is we never get to fully process these negative emotions or these worries, or fears, or scarcities, or anything. I have examples of clients that have lost a father really young, or a mother really young. There’s you know narcissism in the family. There’s emotional abuse or sexual abuse – there’s physical abuse. All these types of things.
You’re ostracized in school because you learn a different way or you look a different way, or you know we’re looking to our externals as young kids for validation of self to know that we’re enough. To know that we’re okay, to understand ourselves and who we are. And what happens when these types of negative emotions from these negative experiences don’t get processed, they almost become trauma in your body. They almost become an emotional pain body. They become stuck and when they become stuck, have a fear that we don’t know how to handle it. We don’t believe we know how to handle our own negative emotions, our own painful experiences – our own emotional world.
We’re not taught a proper structure much of the time, because of the collective consciousness, not because of anyone’s fault just because of where things have been in the world – in the evolution of emotion and awareness.
What’s emotion? It’s energy, positive and negative energy, but it’s all energy. What does energy want? It just wants to be experienced and released, it just wants to go. And if we can’t do that and we don’t know how to release it from our body, we keep it stuck – we keep it in or what most of us do as well is we assign that power. That part of ourselves that we can’t reach, because we’re not experiencing it or feeling it or processing it or owning it – that negative emotion unconditional or very conditional with ourselves.
We project that power onto food, drugs, alcohol, another person, status, idealism, a job, and achievement – what is it for you?
What is it for you that you’ve given too much power to, that now has power over you? I have many of my own examples in my own life and I’m sure I’ll go into that in the book, but for now, I’ll give you a couple of examples because endings are a really big deal.
We are constantly looking to the thing… food, people, drugs… whatever it is that we’ve assigned power to because that thing is our distraction from our own negative emotion, our own experience that we’re afraid to own, because if we think – if we feel that – if we allow ourselves to go into that thing we’re afraid of… false evidence appearing real. We’re afraid that it will confirm we’re afraid of, that we’re not enough, that we are negative, and that we are bad since we felt bad emotions as a kid, that we aren’t enough.
Whatever it is that we are afraid to feel, we’re afraid to feel it because we’re afraid that it will then confirm that our identity – who we are is not enough.
And so instead of having the courage or the ability or the tools and skills to go into that, what we say is… “I’m gonna make sure that’s not true, I’m gonna attach to this ideal or this person that seems safe.” So, what we do as a society… which is so crazy to me at this point but I did it too – we all did it, we all do it… are we attached to this idea that if I’m an ideal… If I’m the things that society has taught me will make me happy or enough… If I’m those things I’ll be safe for myself because I am not safe because I got negative emotions going on.
But what’s so interesting with every one of my clients and they get to this point, this sort of transformation point that they’re about to break through to the other side… the same thing always happens. They start noticing that this coping mechanism, this thing that kept them safe in their ideal is now keeping them unsafe from their real – their true self.
I always talk about the ideal versus the real. This idea of… I’m gonna be perfect so they don’t have to feel negative emotion… I’m gonna do everything right and be good so they don’t have to feel that bad thing… that bad thing won’t be triggered. I’m gonna keep everything great, perfect, safe, skinny, rich, loved by a guy or girl, whatever the f*ck it is, sorry.
Whatever it is for you, I’m going to keep that going so that I can know that I’ll just never have to be – I’m not bad and will never have to feel that feeling of being bad or unworthy or whatever. What you start noticing is these things keep you stuck. These things keep you dependent. These things hold your power. And when you start doing this work and you start realizing you just want your power back, you just want to be who you truly are, you just want to be empowered, then you start to get scared because you’re like… shit I know I’m gonna have to take it back from that and I don’t know how. I’m afraid of what I’m gonna feel because you’re about to feel a whole lot of cool stuff, but you don’t know that yet, you think it’s scary stuff.
You get to this point where you realize that thing that kept you so safe you think wasn’t allowing you to be authentic. When you’re safe you’re not authentic. You’re in this idea of things, you’re in this safety net of things that someone told you would keep you safe. By the way, you notice how those negative emotions still pop up, you still get triggered – it’s a Band-Aid! It’s a cover for your real emotional self and when you say you know what shit I just need to take the Band-Aids off so I can really expose the wound and it can get the light it needs or the air and heal. I’m gonna endure that pain so that I can finally have really no pain or weigh less pain because once I have my emotions back, I own what I feel. I embody negative emotions just like positive emotions.
There’s no right, wrong, good, or bad, but we taught that there is and I’m gonna reclaim it instead of abandoning it. Holy shit this is a lot of power, I’m really scared of what I feel. I’m really scared of what I feel, what do I do?
That’s why I come in, I come in to help you with that. What you need to do is… we all need to learn how to not run. Don’t run from what you feel. Don’t abandon it. Don’t fear it – allow it.
You are not your feeling, you are a person having an experience that creates energy that now is called emotion, and if it’s bigger than this – great! Get help on board. Have someone do it with you. I just want to explain the sort of simple process of processing emotion. Now, if you have PTSD or there’s like more going on, there’s going to be a much deeper process, but it’s also still possible to heal emotional wounds. But let’s just go with someone who gets triggered on a regular basis or has a pattern that isn’t healthy.
We’re gonna notice that the emotion is not who I am, the emotion is how I feel. It’s a separate body that lives in me so there’s an emotion happening, it’s not who I am, it’s not telling me my identity. It’s not gonna kill me, but I’m gonna have to feel it to heal it. I’m gonna have to validate that this thing is actually there and doesn’t mean anything bad about me. I don’t know what meaning I sign to it. I don’t know what power I sign to it. I’m gonna take it back so I’m gonna see that I am more powerful than this emotion, it does not have power over me. It has for quite some time but I’m gonna take my power back and I’m just gonna notice it, validate it then I’m gonna feel it – I’m gonna feel it and not too much but I’m just gonna start asking it, give it a voice. It needs to have power in its own right.
Give it a voice and say I own you, you don’t own me, but can you let me know what you are thinking? Can you let me know what it is you believe? Can you let me know why I feel guilt, why I feel shame, why I’m so scared of you? Why I’m afraid to eat that ice cream? Why I’m afraid to leave that guy that’s not good for me? Why I can’t leave the job that pays me a lot of money that makes me look cool because it’s the high status? What is it I’ve placed in you?
Validate. Give it a voice then you get to choose. Am I ready to keep feeling you or am I’m gonna put you back on the shelf? Because remember I own you, emotion. I’m gonna put you on the shelf till I can deal with you later through a writing exercise. There’s an EFT that I’ll be doing later this week. You start to parent the emotion, you start to give it boundaries. You don’t own me, I see where you live in me. And a lot of people serve over here, a lot of people after they start doing this work were like shit, who am I without that fear? Who am I without that pattern? You don’t have to worry about that because you truly come from a place of inner stuff.
The things that you can actually control is actually who you really are joy, health, happiness — love. When you start to clear some of this control that your fear has over you, that false power has over you, you start to not be disempowered but empowered and you start to feel more clear about your own direct guidance – your inner guidance. You start to feel like, oh my god that brings me joy, I’m gonna go towards that. Oh my goodness, this feels good I’m gonna go towards that.
When we start to reclaim our emotional self, the negative and the positive, and own it, we have more strength in our own guidance. We can feel it here. We’re not numb and stuck.
So guys, why are we afraid to own our power because we’re afraid of what it’s going to say about us and we don’t think we can handle all that emotion. Power… it seems scary, but when we know how to handle it, we know how to parent our emotions, we know how to embody that love – that light, that joy that we truly are and we let it back in because we’re not saying you’re good or you’re bad – you just are.
We start to come home a little more.
Namaste.
