Dear Heart, This is For You as You Step into Your Power
By Caitlin Oriel
Reprinted from Give A Hand, 2017
“It’s not a woman’s job to get smaller and smaller until she disappears so the world can be more comfortable.” ~ Glennon Doyle Melton
When we tenderhearted women step into our power, we bow in acknowledgment to the recognition that we can no longer live a lie.
When the thought of feeling anything at all is too painful, we live the lies of addiction and of numbing ourselves out. In doing so, we distract ourselves from the vulnerability of exposing our real selves.
As we walk into our truth (sometimes for the first time in this lifetime), if we’re shifting, we can’t help but shift those around us.
When you step into your power, something becomes different about the way your light shines, dear heart — it’s sparked alive again.
By power, I don’t mean the power that brings energies of destruction to the world and leaves you clamoring to leave your mark in a manner of naivety and ego.
By power, I mean your power. I mean the power of your soul, the power of your consciousness that you were brought into this world to share. Stop hiding it — your gifts matter.
You could call it your gifts and talents, or your deepest secrets. But in a masculine-dominated world that doesn’t like to ruffle feathers and disrupt the natural hierarchy that our society has evolved into, you’ve grown up taking your superpowers out of safekeeping only when it feels safe (and that might be never).
When we women step into our power, we let go of who we were and we let go of the people who we walked with who simply don’t fit into the schema of our new identity. We let go of the shame of sharing the gifts and talents of our soul. We cut our tethers to the relationships that clipped our wings instead of strengthening our roots.
There’s great sorrow in shedding an old layer of our selves that doesn’t fit anymore. You have every right to grieve your old identity, but grieve it, let it go, and then set it free. You’re going to be okay. Step into your power with grace and confidence, for this act of shifting yourself matters — and you matter too.
When you step into your power, you tell the story of who you are with your whole heart, for you can no longer tell a lie.
Stepping into our power as women doesn’t mean acting tough and pretending we’re okay. It means a deep acceptance of the fact that it’s okay to fall apart; it means recognizing the power of saying, “I will try again tomorrow, stronger and more powerful, and pick myself up, walking forward in my integrity.”
Stepping into your power is not a badge of courage or a sword you yield. It’s unlearning the shame and guilt of being human when you didn’t feel or act how the world told you that you should to be a good human.
Our power is that deep self-acceptance of living for ourselves. Quit living for someone else, in search of their praise. You’re doing it right — you’re going to be just fine.
I simply won’t stand for living with my light off any longer. We women are too full of truth to lie and small ourselves away in the service of someone else’s truth.
Caitlin Oriel is a Boulder, Colorado native. She is a dreamer, a yogi, and a wanderer at heart. She loves the ocean waves and lazy mornings in the sun with a cup of coffee and a good book. Her time-tested remedy for surviving life’s struggles is taking the time to watch the sun set out in the stillness of nature. She believes in a world where passion and community come together to create magic. She will not settle for something that does not drive her soul’s passion.