S4: E6 - This is for the Woman Who’s Shitting Herself About Her Own Potential!

In this episode, we’re diving into the uncomfortable truth that sometimes the thing standing between us and the life we say we want is the fear of what happens if it actually works!

We’ll be exploring self-sabotage, visibility, the witch wound, fear of judgement, fear of success, and the stories so many women tell themselves about why now isn’t the right time. We’ll talk about why “being realistic” can sometimes be a disguise for playing small, why waiting until you feel ready is often a trap, and how many of us have spent years shrinking ourselves without even realising we’re doing it.

If you’ve ever found yourself talking yourself out of opportunities, second-guessing your intuition, waiting for permission, or standing on the edge of something bigger whilst convincing yourself you’re not ready yet, then this episode is for you.

I feel we too often as women, feel we are lacking confidence, but I'd argue it's actually that our power is far bigger than we've allowed ourselves to believe, and THAT'S scary!!xxx

Transcript

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Hello my lovelies and welcome back to the Witchery podcast. And as I speak right now, there is rain that has just started, and I can hear it tapping on the window. And I don't know about you, but I absolutely love the rain. Not when I'm in it, not when I'm outside getting wet. Although sometimes it can be fun. Sometimes me and the kids do go running out. But when you're indoors and you can hear like the rain tapping against the window, and it just to me it feels powerful. It feels like a powerful release. And actually quite fitting for today's podcast. Because today, this episode is for the woman who is scared of her own power. So it feels so fitting that the weather would show up for us today and show us Mother Nature in all of her power, all of her glory. And when I say the woman who's scared of her own power, I don't want you to immediately roll your eyes and think to yourself, well, I don't think I'm powerful. Certainly not enough to be scared of myself. I just want you to stay with me for a moment because that's exactly what I want to talk about today. So I think for most of us, when we hear the word power, and I blame the patriarchy for this, I blame the patriarchy, I've realized for quite a lot, but I do think we automatically think of that masculine power, which of course is beautiful in its own right, but there's a softer version of power as well. You know, like I think we often imagine power as confidence, and they imagine that it's you know someone who can walk into a room and instantly just like own it, or someone who, you know, speaks the loudest and knows exactly what they want and never doubts themselves, and who has their life together and their bank account is like blossoming, and they have really strong boundaries and they know you know the right thing to say all the time, but that isn't the type of power that I'm talking about to you today. Actually, on a side note, I don't believe that kind of power actually exists. I think for a lot of people it is a case of starting before you feel ready, because I don't think we ever feel ready or completely confident in something and allowing yourself to go with it. And I think to some extent it is something that we tell ourselves and so we project it to the outside world. But that is a different topic altogether, and I will try not to get too sidetracked in this episode. But when I'm talking about power, I'm talking about the quieter, the softer, the more feminine kind, and the kind that's sitting inside you, the listener, right now. You know, the kind that whispers rather than shouts, but still manages to be heard. And the kind that's probably been trying to get your attention for a long time now. Because she knows exactly what needs to happen next, but perhaps keeps getting drowned out by fear, by guilt, by overthinking, by self-doubt, all of those things that our human likes to throw at us. And I don't think most women are frightened of failing. I do think that most women are frightened of succeeding and how that will look for us, and how it will feel, and what the consequences of that will be. And you might kind of logically we think to ourselves, but why would I be scared of power? Why would I be scared of getting exactly what it is that I want? Why would I be scared of feeling confident to be able to bring the magic that I want to bring to the world? Why would I be scared of freedom and feeling free? Why would I be scared of becoming, you know, the person that I'm really desperately trying to become? But have you ever found yourself kind of procrastinating on something that you desperately want and sabotaging opportunities that could genuinely help to change your life? You know, where you start shrinking back just as things start going well, or convincing yourself that you're not ready, despite having more than enough knowledge, more than enough experience and capability, then perhaps you've experienced this too. Because success sounds wonderful until you start thinking about everything else that comes along with that. It's like there's a lot of people, and I think in our teenagers, you know, as we're growing up, we often think this. Oh, being rich and famous, but the actuality of that, you know, being so visible, being so recognizable, having that heavy weight of responsibility, the judgment that comes with it, the change that comes to your life, the people that suddenly start having opinions about you, the misunderstandings that people will hold about you, or people deciding that they just don't like you, and there isn't really a reason why, other than you've put yourself out there, and they've made that judgment, which is fine, we don't all like each other, but it could still feel difficult to have to deal with that, you know, and the more that you put yourself out there, the more expectations that land on your shoulders because there's more people watching, and suddenly staying where you are right now starts feeling quite a bit nicer and safer than stepping into where you're being called to go. And I see this all the time, and I feel it as well. I'm not outside of this, you know, but I have so many clients and myself as well who tell me that they want more confidence, they want more freedom, they want more abundance, more visibility, more impact, all of the things. But then when those opportunities arrive, they find a thousand reasons not to go along with it. You know, they start telling themselves that they're not ready, they're not qualified enough, they start looking for the next course that can help them, and then they'll feel ready. They feel that they need another certificate to add along with their with their pile of certificates. They need another year, just practicing their craft and really perfecting it. Maybe they need to launch on another new moon, another full moon. You know, there's some kind of permission slip that they feel they need. And again, when I say they, I mean me as well. I am absolutely 100% included in this. And I think many of us have spent so long talking about fear of failure that we often do ignore the fear of power. And I think for us as women especially, this is absolutely rife. Because power always changes things, like we spoke about before. If you become successful, your relationships around you will change. If you start speaking your truth, some people won't like what you have to say. If you stop people pleasing, and this is a big one, this isn't even about, you know, being visible or anything like this. Often, when we're on our healing journey, we obviously start setting boundaries that we perhaps didn't have before. We start seeing traits in ourselves that we are bending over backwards to be able to support everyone else while completely abandoning ourselves. And so often when we get called down this beautiful spiritual path, we do start seeing ourselves and valuing ourselves more, and so we do put those boundaries in place and we do stop people pleasing. But as I'm sure a lot of you will have experienced also, other people do not like it when you suddenly stop people pleasing. It's it becomes you doing something wrong because you're not fitting into the box that they were once able to put you into, you know. And if you start honouring your intuition, you'll have to stop pretending that you don't know what you know. If you and you know what I'm talking about, when I know that everyone that's been drawn here will be intuitive, you will be empathic, and you'll walk into a room and you will know when the energy is off, you will feel it deep within you, and it's like when you meet someone and you can tell instantly there's something like little alarm bells that go off in your head, but no one else seems to be able to see it. Everyone around you might be saying, What a wonderful person this is, and sometimes, granted, it could be that your shadow side is re is rearing herself and she is illuminating to you triggers and where you perhaps need healing, but a lot of the time it is your intuition telling you that something's off, and that doesn't mean that they're a bad person, it just means that there's not that energetic match there. But you'll often find that later down the line other people will start seeing what you felt instantly, and so if you start favoring your intuition and start honouring that and really listening to that, what will that mean in those situations? Again, if you step into your full power, are you going to feel more called to step away from more people, to step away from more containers, to step away from more places that you've perhaps felt comfortable within? And that really can feel quite terrifying, especially for women, especially for sensitive women like your beautiful selves, especially for women who are carrying the witch wound. Because if we look back throughout history, women who stepped out often paid the price for it. Obviously, as you know, in this podcast we cover a lot of true crime witch trial stories, and all of those stories are about predominantly women who have been persecuted for being different, and we carry this wound within us still today. It was this this wound was added into the collective, and we're still feeling it today. It may not show up in the same way. We don't tend to well, I say we don't tend to, we don't have witch trials anymore, but we do see it play out. How many times have you been in the online space and you have seen someone being called out, which then starts a witch hunt? You know, how many times have you seen these things play out where one thing is said and all of a sudden all of this hatred starts coming someone's way because they've done something that has triggered someone else? You know, it plays out in different ways, and visibility for us can be so, so difficult. And stepping into our power can be so difficult as well. You know, because these often these women, dating back to you know, historical times where there were the witch wound, these were the women that knew things, that trusted their intuition, that they may have led, they may have healed people, they may have spoken out about things that other women would keep quiet about. They may have challenged men, God forbid, they may have challenged the patriarchy, you know, they may have refused to reform conforms in every way that they were asked to. You know, they may have they may have held influence, they may have took up space, they may have made other people feel uncomfortable. And we see the same pattern today, you know, it's not because they were evil, it's not because they were dangerous, it's because they were powerful. And so many of us carry the imprints of that within our soul today. Some of you may know some of your past lives, but it's not necessarily that you consciously remember specific past lives or historical events that happened to you, to your soul, but it's because women have been conditioned for generations to understand that being acceptable is often far safer than being powerful. Being liked is safer than being authentic. Being quiet is safer than being visible. And the conditioning runs throughout everything. How many times, you know, were you told as you know, be a good little girl? You know, taught especially like in England with a whole stiff upper lip, like don't show emotion. And as a woman, especially, being gaslit for feeling angry about something that you have every right to feel angry about, but it being played off as you being an emotional woman, you being told you're too sensitive, and all these sorts of things, you know. The and again, I'm coming back to the patriarchy, but the patriarchy, it does instill that within us throughout the whole school system. We are taught that we have to do things the right way, we have to get the right answers, and that getting the wrong answers is a bad thing because if we get a bad mark, it means that we couldn't possibly go on to be, you know, a good upstanding member of society. Of course, we know that's not right, but but you know, all of these conditions, we are taught all of these things from such an early age that we have to spend so much of our adult lives then unconditioning ourselves, if that's a word, and kind of unpeeling all of those layers, all of those shoulds that have been placed onto us. But underneath it, they're just making themselves smaller because some part of them still believes that that is what safety looks like. And I do get it, because there have been so many moments in my life where I have felt myself standing kind of at the edge of something bigger, and then I immediately wanted to retreat. Nothing to do with not wanting to do it, just because I suddenly felt like there was more to lose, like there was more eyes on me, there was more responsibility, there was more expectation being placed on me. You know, even simple things. I remember when I very first started this podcast, going back a few years now, and I don't know why at the time, because now it it doesn't, now it I love, you know. Well, I loved it right from the start, but now recording an episode is wonderful, and I really enjoy it to be able to share this, and I love hearing back from you. But before I started it, I thought, oh my god, no one's gonna listen. No one's gonna want to hear from little old me. And I had this fear that no one was gonna listen, and then I'd be judged for it, which is so sick, because in reality, even if no one did listen, no one has the time to be sitting there thinking about me and my podcast, you know, but we tell ourselves these stories, don't we? And we build it up in our minds, and I started worrying about becoming more visible, about okay, but these podcasts are completely public, and I'm putting my views out there into the world. What judgment will I get back? And of course, there will always be people that have different opinions to you, and that can be challenging to hear when you get challenged on one of your you know deepest thoughts and feelings and told that you're wrong by someone that you don't know, it can be difficult, and you do have to expect certain changes, but I wouldn't change this for the and this is just my little podcast, you know. We're not talking on a on a massive scale, and I'm sure that you can think back to different things that you have done, where before you started it felt like such a huge step, and you almost talked yourself out of it probably like two zillion times, but then you did it, and then you felt comfortable doing it, and then it felt natural, and then you absolutely fell in love with it, and I think that's the way it works a lot of the time, but that doesn't stop that feeling at the start, that thing that stands between us and the life that we want, and it's never well, it's very rarely a lack of capability. I think a lot of the time it can be your nervous system not knowing how to feel safe in receiving something more abundant, and a nervous system that has learned how standing out can be dangerous, a history, a soul history that's learned how standing out can be dangerous, how being seen can lead to criticism and success can lead to rejection, and power can ultimately lead to some form of isolation. And until we address that, I think we'll keep finding ways to stay stuck whilst we convince ourselves that we're waiting for the perfect moment. We'll convince ourselves that, you know, oh, it's just because we're not ready. When in actuality, it's that fear holding us back, that fear of our own power, the fear of our own success. We have to start before we're ready or before we feel that we're ready. And then once we've started, we'll keep it up and we'll feel more comfortable with it. And I think we just need to trust ourselves more. As women, we are again conditioned to not trust ourselves, not just women as well, men as well. We we're taught that logic outweighs intuition, and obviously, there are circumstances where that is the case, but a lot of the time our intuition is so incredibly powerful, it tells us which way we really want to treat ourselves, and you know, that trust in our inner knowing, the trust in our ability to handle whatever life throws at us next. The trust that we don't have to earn our place by shrinking, the trust that we don't need permission, you know, you can take up space whenever you want to take up space. The space is yours to take, and you're allowed to be powerful, and you're allowed to believe in yourself, you're allowed to believe in who you are and what you want, and trust your voice and your gift and your intuition and you know your wisdom and your truth and all of your gorgeous sparkliness. I think there are probably women that are listening to this right now who already know exactly what they're being called towards. You know, that decision that they've got to make or the conversation that they've got to have, the dream that they've been thinking about forever, the next step that they have to take. You know what has been whispering to you for months, maybe even years, maybe your whole life it feels. The question isn't whether you're capable of doing it, it is whether you are willing to stop pretending you're not. Because perhaps you're not scared of failing at all. Perhaps you're scared of discovering just how blooming powerful you really are. And if that's true, then maybe it's time to stop shrinking and stop waiting and stop asking for permission and just trust yourself. So I would love to hear your thoughts any times that perhaps you have felt yourself feeling scared of your own power, of your own success, because I know for certain there have been many times that I have felt that way. And I want to say a huge thank you for tuning in, for being with me while I share this episode with you. And again, please know you can reach out at any time. You can find me on Facebook, Kylie Anna, you can email me, Kylie at witchywoo.net. I would love, love, love to hear from you. I would love to hear your thoughts about the episode, about any of the episodes, and hear your experiences all about it. So until the next time, I'll speak to you soon.