“You possibly can’t heal what you gained’t enable your self to really feel.” ~Unknown
I used to behave robust on a regular basis. On the surface, I appeared like I had all of it collectively. I used to be competent, composed, and succesful. I used to be the one different individuals got here to for recommendation or help.
The stickiness was that my model of power created distance. I couldn’t enable myself to look weak as a result of I used to be terrified that if I let myself break down, I wouldn’t be capable to pull myself again collectively.
Possibly beneath all of it, I used to be so fragile I’d really break.
So I held it in. All of it—my grief, my worry, my loneliness. That is what robust individuals do, proper?
I realized to be robust early as a result of I needed to.
My mom was depressed and suicidal for the youthful years of my life. From a younger age, I felt prefer it was as much as me to maintain her alive. I turned the caretaker, the one who made issues okay, even when nothing was.
My father left earlier than I used to be born. I didn’t meet him till I used to be six, and after I did, it wasn’t secure. He was abusive and schizophrenic. One time, he tried to strangle me. That second embedded one thing deep: each second is a threat. To outlive, I realized to remain alert, in management, and numb.
Later, my mum entered a same-sex relationship—a daring transfer within the eighties, when that form of love wasn’t accepted. Her companion, a former murder detective turned trauma therapist, was emotionally unstable and narcissistic. My residence didn’t really feel secure. There wasn’t plenty of room for me to be a baby.
So, I turned hyper-responsible. A perfectionist. A fixer. I micromanaged not solely my life but additionally the feelings of others after I might. My model of “power” turned what I hid behind and my id.
However beneath all of it, I used to be scared. My “power” was survival, not freedom.
Years later, I moved to Australia and located myself with a buddy in an influence vinyasa yoga class. It was sizzling, sweaty, and intense. I hated it. The carpet smelled. The trainer talked your entire time. I used to be offended.
After which it hit me: I used to be all the time offended.
Beneath the looks of getting all of it collectively, I used to be exhausted and resentful. The yoga mat didn’t create these emotions—it simply revealed what I had been carrying all alongside.
That evening, one thing shifted. I noticed my “power” wasn’t actually power; it was my wall. A wall that had saved me secure but additionally saved me from feeling.
So, I saved going again. First to yoga, then to a deeper journey of therapeutic.
The method got here in layers.
Alongside my therapeutic journey, I explored many alternative modalities. The primary was EFT (emotional freedom approach), the place I touched feelings I had buried for many years. Later, kinesthetic processing confirmed me that it was secure to really feel the whole lot—each emotion, each reminiscence—via my physique. This was the start of softness integrating into my life, not simply as an thought, however as a lived expertise.
For thus lengthy, my power had been armor—the braveness to outlive. However softness opened one thing new: the braveness to thrive, as a result of my coronary heart was not closed.
There was no single breakthrough, no magic second.
With every layer that fell away, I started to switch resistance with openness, partitions with connection. Slowly, I got here to belief that softness wasn’t one thing to worry—it was one thing I might lean into.
And what I realized is that this: my therapeutic required softness, which meant vulnerability and permitting myself to totally really feel.
Softness isn’t weak spot.
It’s staying open when the whole lot in you needs to close down.
It’s permitting your self to be seen with out the masks.
It’s selecting presence over efficiency.
True energy isn’t management. It’s vulnerability. It’s feeling your manner via life and trusting your self—trusting your ideas, your choices, and your impulses so that you cease second-guessing and cease counting on fixed exterior validation. Belief lets you act from readability as a substitute of worry.
It’s trusting your physique, noticing what nourishes you versus what depletes you, and setting boundaries with out guilt. It’s trusting life’s pure movement, letting go of the stress to pressure issues to occur in accordance with a strict schedule. It’s trusting your individual internal reality. Belief and softness go hand in hand; the extra you belief your self, the extra you’ll be able to keep open and current with out worry.
In case you’ve been holding all of it collectively for too lengthy, possibly power doesn’t appear like pushing via. Possibly it appears to be like like slowing down. Like taking a breath. Like feeling what’s been ready to be felt.
And possibly, simply possibly, your sensitivity isn’t one thing to cover or harden.
Possibly your sensitivity is your superpower.
In a world that teaches us to be robust, courageous, and unshakable, we are able to neglect that our biggest knowledge usually is available in stillness.
It comes once we soften. Once we pay attention. Once we let go of who we predict we needs to be and are available residence to who we already are.
Power isn’t about being unbreakable. It’s about being actual.
Once I began listening to myself, I noticed how usually I had ignored my very own wants and wishes, pushing via life in accordance with what I believed I “ought to” do. I realized to honor my emotions, belief my instincts, and make decisions that nourished me as a substitute of drained me. Consequently, my relationships deepened, my confidence grew, and I discovered a way of ease and movement I by no means thought potential.
Generally the best factor you are able to do for your self is hearken to the quiet, unchanging knowledge inside you and belief what you hear.
About Shauna Hawkes
Shauna Hawkes is a ladies’s embodiment mentor, Gene Keys information, and yoga trainer with over fifteen years of expertise. She helps ladies at a crossroads break away from self-sabotage, discover readability, and step confidently into the subsequent chapter of their lives via mentorship, workshops, yoga retreats, and Gene Keys readings. Curious to find extra about your self? Take her free archetypes quiz at shaunahawkes.com or click on this hyperlink direct – Take Quiz
