How to Reclaim Your Power

A few days ago, I ran one of my monthly Soul Healing Workshops on the theme of power.

I honestly wasn’t sure if I was going to do one this month, and then it dropped in very quickly that I should do one on power. Power is not something I would normally talk about, and it is not something I would normally feel especially confident speaking about, because to me power is incredibly intangible!

People talk about ‘claiming back your power’, moving out of disempowerment and ‘stepping into your power’, but sometimes those words don’t mean very much. What does it actually mean to have power? Where is it within us? How do we lose our connection to it, and how can we reclaim it?

The truth is that I do not think our power has gone anywhere. It is still there.

We might think we’ve lost it, but from my understanding we’ve just become disconnected from it. So this workshop became an exploration of our relationship to power, our understanding of it, and the hidden reasons we can feel unable or afraid to express it.

I wrote this post a while ago which touches onto the Soul Contract energies related with power, but it was great to dive a little deeper into this theme. You can watch the workshop below or feel free to carry on reading.

What Does It Really Mean to Be in Your Power?

When I looked up the ordinary definitions of power, the definitions felt quite dry. So at the beginning of the workshop, I asked everyone what power meant to them.

For one person it meant being unapologetically herself, without allowing family or social conditioning to keep her small. For another, it meant being free from fear. Someone else described power as our ability to create for the highest good of everyone, rather than something we use over other people.

All of these answers felt true to me.

And ultimately, I believe power is being yourself and living in alignment with your values. It is not letting the conditioning of the family around you, or what I might call the family matrix, pull you away from yourself or hide you from yourself.

And boundaries are a very big part of that. So are truth, freedom from fear, and the understanding that we can all be powerful together. It does not need to be, “I am powerful and you are not.”

My understanding is that power is really about how we direct our life force, the force that flows through us and is expressed through our thoughts, our words and our actions. There is no true separation between those things, as our thoughts, words and actions all contribute to the energy field around us.

The Difference Between Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Power

I think there are different levels of power, although they’re always feeding into one another. There is physical power, emotional power and spiritual power.

Physical power is our capacity to move through the material plane. It is what we can actually do with our bodies, minds, energy and strength. It is taking action, working, following through and creating. Some of us know that we can make things happen in the physical world, but others have ideas and intentions but feel unable to act on them.

Emotional power is our resilience and our ability to communicate emotionally, the ability to hold ourselves and to be present with other people. Some of the most powerful people I see are people who can communicate - through their body language, through their eyes and through the way they speak.

But emotional power is not only about speaking well, it is also about empathy.

The world often tells sensitive people not to be so soft or not to feel so much, but I think empathy is one of the most powerful things in the world! It is a game changer, and from my experience, many people who are drawn to spiritual work are naturally deeply empathetic and emotionally connected.

They may not think of this as strength because sensitivity has so often been presented to them as a weakness, but the ability to feel, understand and hold space for another person is a real form of power.

And lastly, spiritual power is living in alignment with your core values. It is being unapologetically yourself, knowing your truth and being willing to follow and speak it. It is connecting to the intuition of the higher self, and learning to follow the soul rather than the demands of the ego mind.

Power, the Ego and the Difference Between Light and Darkness

Power itself is neither light nor dark. It just is. And what matters is the consciousness directing it.

When power is operating through the ego, it can become controlling, manipulative, coercive and greedy. When the soul directs power in the light, it becomes creative, loving, compassionate, liberating and healing. Power aligned with love has a very different movement to power aligned with fear - it feels far more fluid and graceful.

And, when it is fully integrated, it becomes sovereignty.

Unfortunately, most of us have witnessed power being abused, both in our own lives and on the main stage of the world. We have seen people without the level of consciousness needed to use power with integrity.

And when someone has been disempowered, they can choose to disempower other people in return, because that is the quickest way to feel powerful again. Or they can do the much harder work of reclaiming their own power, without taking it away from anybody else, which is the healing work.

As we know, power that remains unconscious can become dominating and misused.

We see it in bullies, in parents, in relationships and in world leaders, because people who exert power over others are often deeply afraid of being out of control. A bully may bully because of low self-esteem, just like someone who abuses power is often frightened of not having any, so they channel this fear into control.

But suppressed power has a different expression.

When our power is suppressed we can become passive, resentful and angry, and when we remain passive, give too much or fail to act on our truth, resentment begins to build, so we have to move that disempowerment through us. Otherwise it sits in our fields and becomes anger, frustration and blocks us from moving forwards in our life.

How Fear and Trauma Disconnect Us From Our Power

I don’t think we really lose our power - I think we become disconnected from it, afraid of it, or conditioned to believe that it’s not safe to express it.

One of the central beliefs underneath disempowerment is simply, “I don’t believe I have power.” This can stem from a lack of love, validation and emotional support in childhood. Betrayal is a very big part of disempowerment, especially betrayal by someone who was supposed to love, protect or care for us.

Being bullied, criticised or put down can gradually disconnect us from our confidence, whether is happens within the family, at school, in the workplace, in partnerships and even in friendships. Having our views and opinions dismissed is deeply invalidating, and when we are repeatedly talked over, ignored or denied the space to speak, we can begin to believe that our voice has little value.

Later, this may appear as shyness, a lack of confidence or a deeply self-critical inner voice. We may feel that if we are finally going to speak up, what we say had better be perfect (hello, perfectionism). We also might struggle to express what we need, wait for permission to move forward, distrust our inner feelings, or feel invisible to the world.

And underneath all of this is often the fear of being judged, criticised or ostracised.

Another belief is, “It isn’t safe to express my power.” This can develop after witnessing or experiencing the misuse of power or after being punished for succeeding. I call this the ‘tall poppy syndrome’ which is when someone starts becoming visible and attracts criticism simply because they’re doing well.

The trauma within those experiences can lead to challenging relationships, weak boundaries, overgiving, shrinking and avoiding visibility, so we begin to feel that it is not safe to be seen or successful.

The ego then takes us through its whole chain of fear. If I’m successful, I’ll be seen. If I’m seen, people will criticise, attack or judge me. If I’m criticised, attacked or judged, I’ll be cast out and lose everything I have. The ego takes us all the way down through the levels of fear until we arrive at the fear of death, which sits at the core of all our fears.

To avoid that feeling, we overthink and stay in the mental body, constantly calculating how to remain safe.

We may also sabotage opportunities that could lead to success, visibility and standing out. Self-sabotage is incredibly sneaky because it sits underneath the surface. We can be semi-aware that we are doing it, whilst also fearing the consequences of what we say we want.

The Fear of Becoming Powerful

There is another belief that is more subtle but very important: “I’m afraid of who I might become if I have power.”

If we’ve witnessed powerful people hurting others, we may conclude that we must not become powerful because we might do the same thing. It can also feel like we don’t completely trust ourselves. Added to this, we can also carry beliefs that to be confidence is arrogant, or that money or influence corrupts people, or that success will cause others to envy, reject or attack us.

Some people sense very deeply that they could misuse their physical or intuitive power, and so they move far in the opposite direction, so they make themselves harmless, passive or invisible. Yet the fear of abusing power can itself block a healthy relationship with power - so the answer is not to suppress it, but to ground it in love, consciousness and responsibility.

There is also a theme within some spiritual communities that to be spiritual, we must be passive, humble and small (one of many clichés). So if somebody behaves badly, we think about what they must have been through, put ourselves in their shoes and give them another chance.

While compassion is very important, compassion without boundaries can become another way of abandoning ourselves. We are not here to fix, save and heal everyone - this is the trap that many of us can fall into.

Being spiritual does not mean being powerless. We are spiritual because we are spirit. If we understand ourselves as part of the divine, then we are recognising an enormous power. The work is not to make that power small, it is to learn how to use it consciously and with integrity.

What the Soul Contract Reveals About Power and Disempowerment

This is where the Soul Contract becomes such a helpful map, giving us a much deeper understanding of why life has been the way it has been, where we are now and where we have the potential to go.

From the Soul Contract perspective, we chose to come to Earth and experience particular challenges so that we could grow and evolve through them.

Different energies in the Soul Contract have different relationships with power.

For example, the 17-8 can be connected with soul suppression and the journey of breaking free. The 10-1 can carry themes of betrayal and disempowerment, often connected with the masculine. The 8-8s may become the peacemakers of the family, reading everybody else emotionally and putting other people’s needs first. This can make it difficult for them to bring their own power and attention back to themselves.

The 3-3 and 4-4 energies also carry important themes around confidence and worth around expressing who we are, and the power that comes with that.

The 3s are not only about becoming confident; they are about believing that we are worthy to come out of hiding and be seen. In a different way, 4s are connected with feeling worthy to receive love and abundance. If that worth was not reflected to us in childhood, we may know intellectually that we have power while struggling to feel it inwardly.

The 5-5 and 7-7 energy can be closely connected with fear, speaking up and stepping forward into life. The 5-5 energy is a soft, subtle and intuitive, but it is also here to make itself tangible. This is why this energy is all about assertiveness, and stepping into the power of their truth.

The 9-9 energycan carry a very strong power energy. They may bring a deeper soul resonance around the use or misuse of power, almost like an echo that says, “this time I am going to get it right, this time I will use my power with integrity.” 5-5s and 9-9s can sit at different ends of the power spectrum, with 9-9s expressing power in physical reality and 5-5s carrying a more spiritual and intuitive power.

When these energies appear in karmic positions, there can be a profound learning around how to use both responsibly.

No number works in isolation - there is always a harmony, a thread and a flow between the energies. Like everything in the universe moves in waves, the the Soul Contract energies do too. This is why looking at one energy alone can never tell the whole story.

Reclaiming Confidence, Boundaries and the Truth of Who You Are

Reclaiming power is not as simple as following a set of steps. I think of it more like reconnecting two plugs and suddenly realising, “ah, there it is. I had it all along.”

We begin by becoming aware of the hidden emotional patterns running our lives. These may come through the Soul Contract, through our parents and ancestors, through unprocessed emotional trauma in this lifetime, or through deeper energetic imprints carried on the soul level.

Whatever language we use for them, the important thing is that patterns can operate beneath our awareness until something brings them to the surface.

Boundaries are a very big part of reclaiming power, and for sensitive people, this may mean learning to step away from people who repeatedly push, criticise or invalidate us. It may mean breaking down the boundaries within ourselves that keep our true expression locked away, while building healthier boundaries with the people around us.

Because, it is possible to be compassionate and still say no. It is possible to understand why somebody behaves as they do without continuing to make their behaviour acceptable.

Reclaiming power also means bringing ourselves back into the centre of our own lives. Many people find it easy to act for other people but difficult to act on their own behalf. The shift begins when we consider our own needs, ideas and desires worthy of energy, when we stop waiting for somebody else to give us permission.

Awareness, Compassion and Coming Back Into Command

The most important part of this work is what happens when we bring awareness, non-judgment and compassion to ourselves.

It can be asking why life has felt so hard and then considering what might happen if you took the shame out of that story. What happens if we let go of the judgement we have used to lock ourselves down? What happens if we open to deeper self-compassion?

The more aware we become, the more command we have within our lives.

Our power has not disappeared, it is not something outside us that another person needs to return. While it may have been suppressed by fear, trauma, conditioning or betrayal, that thread of power and life force is still there.

We don’t need to forces ourselves to become more powerful, we only need to bring the hidden parts of ourselves into the light and meet them with enough love that they no longer control us.

Reclaiming power is really the process of remembering ourselves, learning to be unapologetically who we are, and becoming sovereign in our own skin.

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Further Support & Resources

If you’re navigating emotional challenges or feeling weighed down by old patterns, here are a few gentle ways to support yourself:

• Join the next Soul Healing Workshop
  Come and explore the deeper emotional patterns, hidden in the Soul Contract, driving your behaviours.

• Discover your Soul Contract
  Gain insight into the hidden patterns shaping your reality, and understand why certain emotional themes keep repeating in your life.

• Join the next Healing Programme
  Experience a shared, guided space for emotional release and support, and connect with others on a similar path.

• Stay connected
  Join my newsletter for monthly updates alongside the latest insights from the blog.

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Carry on exploring