11/02/2026
5:46pm
Where Do I Disempower Myself?
Sitting Down With My Shadow
To become familiar with the shadow can feel highly uncomfortable. Yet here I am… asking to sit face to face with the pieces of myself that I have disowned. Self-exile stems from many different places… survival, self preservation and defense, the desire to feel acceptance, and avoidance of resistance. Either way, it has become undeniable to me that I cannot be whole if pieces of my authenticity have been broken off and hidden away. I need to welcome back the wholeness of who I am, even if that makes me less digestible to those intimidated or threatened by my fullness of being.
The truth is, I no longer wish to be easily digestible to the masses. I don't desire a life of blending into the background. I am a shining fucking star - radiant, magnificent, and extraordinary. I know that I have powerful messages to share, worthy of being heard. Not everyone will agree, some might even be rubbed the wrong way. However, resonance is a universal truth, and I have no intention of denying universal law. I will be a magnet to those who resonate with my message, and in the same breath, act as a repellant to anyone who doesn’t believe they are worthy of the same empowerment. My message is for those who want to reclaim their wholeness, honoring the entirety of who they are.
Over my lifetime, I have been told to shrink, to accommodate, to give and give and give some more. I have been conditioned to believe that my energy reserve is there to give to others, and I am left with the crumbs remaining. I have been praised for over giving, burned for oversharing, and shamed for my emotions taking up space. I have faced criticism for expressing my authentic self, following my interests, exploring my beliefs, and marching to the beat of my own drum. I have been told to swallow the bitch that lives within my bones, to tether myself to reality rather than getting lost in fantastical thought, and to minimize the radiance of who I am, so that others can feel more comfortable. All of which I have to say, fuck that.
I am ready to relearn how to live in honor of my truest essence because that has always served me greater than operating by another's accord. I want to allow myself the full permission to be the bravest, boldest, biggest version of myself. I am ready to embody the full radiance of who the Divine Creator intended for me to be. I am ready to celebrate my unique creative expression without shame, and without shrinking. I feel like it has been long overdue to step into my power, because for too long I have made myself small, out of fear that I would ruffle feathers if I were to be whole. Too intimidating, too selfish, too bitchy, too bossy, too rigid, too opinionated, too much. Yet I never had these opinions of myself until someone put them in my head along the way. It's interesting to step back and observe areas of my life where I have created false identities to compensate for another's comfort.
I learned to be an over-giver because selfishness with my time and energy didn’t serve someone else’s agenda. I tend to over give my time and energy much too freely out of fear that I will be perceived as selfish. Is it selfish, or is it self care? I am currently learning in therapy that boundaries are not selfish. Resistance to boundaries is a reflection of those who actively disrespect them, more than it is a reflection of you being selfish. Over-giving and self sacrifice is not a love language, no matter what you’ve been taught. My new motto is, “I cannot fill another’s cup until mine is overflowing”- and it has saved me in recent years, as life only seems to become more demanding. If I cannot give happily, I will not be giving at all. Resentment doesn’t sit well in my body, and I only seem to feel it when I have overextended myself. Done are the days where we sacrifice our time, energy, and boundaries for another’s benefit. I am now giving myself permission to be selfish.
As a people pleaser, I have learned to be passive and bend to everyone’s will and wishes, other than my own. I have chosen not to hold people accountable for shitty behavior out of fear of confrontation. Little did I realize that in avoiding the awkwardness of holding them accountable, I was disrespecting myself in the process. I feared being too outspoken, too strong, too intense, too sensitive… Telling myself that there are two sides to every story, afraid to be the villain in theirs. By discounting my own experience and emotions, I justified poor treatment and behavior. I learned to become a contortionist, bending without breaking, until it was inevitable for me to lose my shit. Once I reached my limit, I was then seen as heartless for severing ties, or unleashing the laundry list of wrong-doings that I could no longer ignore. I have learned that not everyone deserves a seat at the table. I am allowed to create and enforce the guest-list of my life. I am entitled to protect my peace.
That being said, I tend to be far too overly-forgiving, and assuming positive intent has been my downfall plenty of times… rather than trusting my instinct of a vibe-check gone sour, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and end up getting burned. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way, more times than I care to admit. I love that I can see the good in everyone, but I also have turned a blind eye to the warning signs flashing in my face. I feared that I was being judgemental, so I let myself learn to love them. I am appreciative of the lesson that some people just don’t pass the vibe check, and I save myself a great deal of pain and heartache by trusting my intuition and the instinctual response to not engage any further than need be. Some people are safer at arms distance. It’s not unwarranted or judgemental. It is your higher knowing, protecting you from unnecessary hardship.
I have been told countless of times that I move too quickly, and have the tendency to be reckless, and act impulsively… so I became overly cautious, a chronic overthinker, and indecisive. I teeter-totter between my instincts and who the world tells me to be frequently. However when I look at the panoramic view of my life, it's clear to see that I have always moved intuitively and have been instinctually driven. It has kept me safe, and my natural responses have not only helped me avert chaos and escape bad spaces and people, but it has also brought me to some of the best spaces of life. I am not wrong for responding to the world in the way that is the most natural to me. It doesn’t make me any less thoughtful, and that was always my worry… I realize that I only began to question my instincts and intuition when more analytically driven people told me that it was wrong. What I have learned is that we all have our own entirely unique way of responding to the world around us. There is a balance that can be found between the extremes, but one person’s right doesn’t make another’s wrong. Differences should be celebrated, because how ridiculously boring would it be if we were all copy and pastes of each other.
I have been told that I am too bossy, so I have become overly compliant and I am often afraid to speak my mind, even when I have wisdom sitting on the tip of my tongue. I have learned to share my opinions more gracefully, and only to those who are in a receptive enough space to appreciate it. I know that I am wise, and even divinely guided and gifted with loving insight. Yet it goes in vain when it falls upon deaf ears. I have learned to read the other person, and discern whether or not they are receptive, or just want a listening ear. I feel that it’s important to mention that it does not serve to be a listening ear to non-stop rambling, especially when it is a pity party of woe is me. It is okay to reserve your energy and care if you feel that it is getting drained, and often met with a lack of reciprocity.
I tend to shy away from sharing my feelings and experiences because vulnerability in bad company has burned me many times over. What I lacked at the time was discernment… but I am wiser now. I have learned that vulnerability can be shared in the spaces where trust has been built. However, I refuse to hide my emotions in fear that they will be misconstrued or rejected. It is none of my business how another person feels about my feelings. It is my responsibility to honor my own emotional process, in whatever way that looks like at the time. I am an emotional woman, and that is something I have learned to celebrate in myself. My tears flow like rivers, my giggles echo off the walls, and my joy shines brightly in the crinkles of my eyes and my grin that spreads from cheek to cheek. I love that I emote my internal world. While this can happen in the privacy of my own company, I am learning to be brave enough to share it with the world too.
I have been told that I have a sharpness, and a bitch that lives beneath the surface when I am pushed too far. To that I say, good… And in my opinion, she might need to come out more often. I have tried to avoid showing my anger or upsetness, but it just ends up eating me alive, privately. There are appropriate times to let the feral woman free, and sometimes life calls for the bitch to be let loose. We should feel free to protect ourselves when need be. Of course, there are ways to do this without sacrificing our dignity. Respectfully, be a bitch when warranted, especially when in the justified defense of yourself and others.
I can’t be the only one fed the narrative that I am unsafe to be in my fullness, because other girls (or women) will feel resistant to me if I do… I believe that this is a story that we tell one another from a space of self-preservation and what feels like learned wisdom. There is an underlying fear in many of us that if you were to walk into a room with your head held high, you would be met with unfavorable opinions. The lie that a confident woman is a self conceded bitch, and a threat to your own self-worth… As if a woman shining brightly detracts any bit from your own light. This perception only furthers the toxic culture amongst women, when in reality there is power in numbers and we could run the world if we stopped tearing each other down in the process. I think many of us are taught that if we shrink ourselves down, we will be easier to approach, and more likeable to the women around us. In this new era of my life, I don’t have any desire to be in the company of someone who can only find comfort in my presence when I am small. As women, we are responsible for repairing the damaging story that we tell ourselves. May we honor and embrace the fullness of our womanhood, in ourselves and others.
To sit with the shadow can be so empowering. In this moment, I wanted to reflect on every disowned piece of myself and find beauty in it. To find error in ways that are not my own, and recognize that I do not honor myself by becoming digestible to others. In my refusal to shrink, to hide, and to overgive, I feel fucking unstoppable. I feel as if I am coming home to myself, and allowing my shadow to see the light. I am ready to embrace the feral, bossy, bitchy, boundary-setting, selfish, impulsive, free-flowing emotional woman that I was always destined to be.