4 Questions that will Help you Step into Your Power and Confidently be you

(originally posted on March 18, 2019)

Life is a series of choices, one after the next after the next. There’s a quote from the movie “The Choice” (gotta love a good Nicholas Sparks movie) that moves something deep within me every time I hear it:

"The whole damn thing is about decisions. Little, seemingly insignificant decisions that clear the road for monster truck life-altering ones. You see, every path you take leads to another choice, and some choices can change everything. Every damn moment of the rest of your life hangs on them.”

And every single choice rests on the shoulders of a question. Some of them are little, seemingly insignificant questions. While others are monster truck life-altering ones.

I think we move too fast through the questions, terrified of what we may feel if we sit with them for too long. When you sit with the questions, though, that’s where you find freedom and self-love and acceptance and forgiveness.

Life happens in the questions.

So, I want to invite you to sit with the questions, because I’m going to be asking some really big ones. Don’t rush right through them to get through reading this as fast as you can or to move on to the next thing. Get quiet, pull out your journal, and let yourself sit inside of them, my love.

I know it’s the “in” thing to pick a word for the year. My years have felt more defined by questions than words, though. And last year was 365 days of living inside of this question:

What would it feel like to release all the parts of me that I’ve been holding onto because someone else said they were important?

It was inside of this question that I learned how to truly stand in my power and live my truth. I found confidence through the journey this question took me on. Standing in the answer after living in this question for so long, I can see all of the incredible parts of the journey. Going through it felt messy as hell, though.

I felt lost far more than I felt found. I wanted to hide rather than be seen. I was lonely. I was scared. I felt like I was coming home to myself, and yet I felt like I was walking through the door of a house I’d never known. I cried. A lot. I spent a lot of time in therapy. I was terrified I’d end up all alone. And while I knew in the end that it would all be worth it, there were so many days I dreamed about throwing in the towel.

But I didn’t. And there aren’t enough words to tell you how wildly grateful I am that I didn’t. Because for the first time in my life, I feel like me. And I love myself in a way that words cannot express - I never knew self-love could feel so whole and unconditional.

Sitting in this question may be one of the most powerful things you ever do. It’s a part of the journey you can’t leave out if you desire to fully stand in your power, my love.

So, where do you start?

Like with any big choice, I think big questions are best broken down into smaller ones. And this is a big question. I sat with it for an entire year before finding some freedom in the answer.

Sitting with this question led to me asking myself lots of other questions. And those are where I want to encourage you to start.

In order to fully step into your power, you’ve got to let go of the things that are weighing you down and holding you back.

What parts of your identity feel like they’re weighing you down?

What parts of your identity feel less like who you really are and more like expectations to live up to?

It’s a lot harder to walk a mile while carrying a baby elephant on your back than it is to walk a mile without a baby elephant on your back. Ok … maybe not the best metaphor. But it’s impossible to confidently stand in the power of who you really are when you’re weighed down by all of the parts of you someone else said you should be.

What are those parts? Who is the person you’ve been trying to be that feels more like an actor trying to play a role than who you really are?

After spending most of your life playing the part, the beginning phase of this journey can feel impossible. It took me awhile to figure out who I really was versus who I thought should be. In the beginning, pulling all of it apart feels messy AF. When you’ve spent most of your life playing the role of who you think you should be, you get so good at it that you convince yourself it’s who you really are.

I got really curious, though. I deeply wanted to know who I was when I wasn't wearing the shoulds of the world. So, I started to wonder - what parts of who I am feel like expectations I have to live up to? And that question opened a giant door for me.

And once the story started to unravel, I began to reveal the truth. My truth. I started to find my way home.

What parts of your identity make you feel whole?

What parts of your identity do you feel most home in?

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I’d spent so much of my life being “nice” that I didn’t know what was really true for me. I wore the “nice girl” label like a badge of honor. It wasn’t just a part of my identity, it was who I was. I didn’t know how not to be her without my entire world crumbling. It didn’t take me long to realize, though, that being “nice” was keeping me from being honest … with everyone, including myself.

Being honest made me feel whole. And being nice started to feel less like a trophy and more like, well, a baby elephant on my shoulders.

I started being more honest about my thoughts and opinions and standing in my truth. And I realized that it’s far more important to me that I be kind to myself than shrink my truth to be “nice” to someone else.

Being kind to myself meant allowing me to stand in my truth and share what’s honest for me. It meant no longer acting like I was responsible for someone else’s feelings and instead I took responsibility for my own feelings. I realized that it’s far more important that I like me than anyone else does. And for the first time in my life, I started drawing hard lines in the sand in terms of relationships I chose not to allow into my life.

I felt most home in myself when I fully embodied my spiritual self, not just mind and body. I had never felt more whole than when I began exploring topics like past life regression therapy, channeling, and connecting with my higher self. It felt like coming home. These parts of me didn’t align with who others told me I should be, though. So, for months I hid them.

Then, I realized being honest about who I really am is far more important than lying to be who someone else wants me to be.

So, I started sharing about these new beliefs and experiences more openly. It was uncomfortable at first, but the more I did it, the more whole I felt. And the more whole I felt, the more confident in myself I became. And the more confident in myself I became, the more I stood in my power. And the more I stood in my power, the more amazing everything felt.

So, I want to invite you on a journey of releasing those parts that are no longer serving you. I want to invite you to live in these questions, my love. And to step into your power.

It’s your choice.

A little, seemingly insignificant choice that can clear the road for monster truck life-altering ones. You see, every question you ask leads to another choice, and some questions can change everything. Like a wise movie writer once wrote, “every damn moment of the rest of your life hangs on them.”

So, tell me ... What would it feel like to release all the parts of you that you’ve been holding onto because someone else said they were important.