What the hell does “standing in your own power” mean, how can I do it, and why should I care?
I have a “hype running” playlist I use at the gym — all the tunes that make me run faster than any podcast or book ever could. Songs I’ve heard a zillion times… but every so often, Spotify (the evil genius that it is) throws in a curveball.
Yesterday, I was happily belting out Believer by Imagine Dragons — all-time classic, elite hype energy — when Slim Shady popped up. Not surprising; my phone is clearly listening to me (hello, targeted ads). Plus, I was enjoying Eminem’s lyrical genius earlier this week while my coach rapped every word, which I found genuinely impressive because I exist in a space where the words to songs are generally of my own creation, not even on purpose, I hear a word and I sing something that sounds like it, it is usually wrong😂.
Fun fact: I did however learn the entire rap from No Diggity (thanks to Pitch Perfect, obviously) and can still perform it on demand… even if you don’t ask. (You won’t. But I might anyway. 😂)It is the only song I am confident I get right.
Anyway — one line in Without Me stopped me in my tracks:
There's a concept that works / Twenty million other white rappers emerge / But no matter how many fish in the sea / It'd be so empty without me.
I’ve heard this line countless times, but this time it hit different.
This is what “standing in your own power” looks like.
It isn’t about needing to be the best. He isn’t saying that at all. I think he’s simply saying, “I’m me." and I don't need to worry about what anyone else is doing because I will still be the best version of me no matter who tries to copy it.
👟 The shoe analogy
So to reverse engineer this feeling I thought about shoes (this feels like journaling whiplash I know but hold steady). Have you ever borrowed someone else’s shoes for a night out or a special event? I definitely have. And no matter what, even if they’re the exact same size, they never feel quite right. They always feel a little weird, maybe uncomfortable, Definitely like your feel just didn’t quite belong in them (maybe that Prince Charming had something in this shoe fitting business after all!).
When you get a new pair of shoes, you “wear them in,” letting them mould to your feet. My runners know exactly what I am talking about here. Try doing a 10k with box fresh trainers, welcome to Blisterville, population, me.
So you wear your shoes around the house and admire them from every angle. You trust that they will feel good in a few days. You don’t cut parts of your foot off to make them fit perfectly immediately. (DYK: in the original Cinderella, the Ugly Sisters literally sliced their feet to fit into the glass slipper. Dark, right?)
Living in your own power is like wearing in your own shoes.
Letting yourself fully “be,” rather than cutting off parts of who you are to squeeze into someone else’s expectations.
🎤 Mike Drop
I have playlists for my classes. As you would imagine, they are unconventional. We have a little bit of Zen to start the class, some Imagine Dragons, some Kenny Rogers, Panic at the Disco, even a bit of Bring Me The Horizon. I also have Disney tunes (naturally), Greatest Showman and some beautiful piano pieces for my sacred savasana. Imagine that I decided to stop playing MY playlists during class because I saw a “serious” yoga teacher online, speaking only in Sanskrit (I am not that girl), with a wind chime and the perfect serene aesthetic.
So I ditch the playlist, buy a tiny triangle to bing now and then, stop making up silly names for poses when I blank (because, let’s be honest, I am a human), and basically try to embody that “perfect” yoga teacher persona.
Guess what? I’d feel weird. My crew would feel weird. The energy would drop.
Am I a stand on a mountain teacher. Nope. I am singing through class, telling crazy stories, talking about ice cream, changing the flow because I can see that someone in the room has a injury they didn't feel able to share and I want them to move without pain. I add stuff because I feel it in my own body. Sometimes I get excited and the flow takes a whole new direction. Trying to be "perfect" would mean that I’d lose connection to my body — my ultimate compass in class. That intuitive sense of when to push, when to slow down, when to crack a joke because the vibe needs it, when to get excited and hype my crew because they are nailing the crazy move that I have tasked them with, in their own wonderfully beautiful ways. If I’m busy performing someone else’s version of “perfect,” I can’t tune into what actually makes me me.
Would I feel accomplished at the end of class? Doubtful. I’d probably feel depleted and like my feet were bleeding (thanks, ugly sister shoe analogy).
💡 So… how do you start?
How do you “be more you” when you’ve been practicing being someone else for so long?
I can only tell you how I did it. I had been hiding. As a child I had a LOT of fingers pointed at me for the way I looked by parents, doctors, kids at school, weird guys who owned horse stables (that's another story).
This made me so self conscious. I had speech therapy because my voice sounded weird and I couldn't say certain words, I had operations and then the after care to create the perfect 'cupids bow' (I still don't have that).
I was very scared to be myself because I had been told forever that I was unattractive and sounded funny. So I hid. Things at home were also tense. So I made everyone feel better. I didn't even really know I was doing it.
I have a Harry Potter scar on my lip. Proper lightning bolt. I was reading the Throne of Glass series. At one point Aelin Galathinius has all of her scars removed by a healer, and she hates it. In that moment I thought, if I could have my lip scar removed, would I?
I really wanted the answer to be yes. But spoiler alter it wasn't. I can't imagine giving up that part of me. And this is a part I have been ashamed of and hiding for my entire life. Turn to the right in pictures, or avoid them all together. Keep my head down on the street lest some evil plundering marauder should pounce and tell me how disgusting I look.
As soon as I thought that I didn't want the scar gone, I held my head up. I am proud of the struggle I went through. Would I wish it on anyone else? No. But you all have your own struggles, same but different. Those struggles made me me. Yours make you you.
With this new perspective in place I started the journey of allowing myself not only to be a weird Disney loving, jiujitsu obsessed, gym queen but tapping into the gentle side of me, the side that cared for others in an authentic way, not an "if I make this better it will make me feel safe" way. The side that is blown away by dragonflies, that plays like a small child whenever possible and will sometimes stop and look for the flower who's scent has hit my nostrils while I am walking the dogs.
And guess what, I felt better. Less tense. More capable. Do people still look at me weirdly? Yes, I think? But I used to think people looked at me anyway. Now because I feel lighter, I don't care what they think. This has taken practice. It has taken learning to feel safe in my body (you can start that journey here).
But every time you let yourself be seen, truly seen, you realize something magical: You are wonderfully, beautifully special and people love you more for it.
You only get one of these lives. Don’t spend it wearing someone else’s shoes.