What does being powerful mean?

What if being powerful is just ‘having your own back’? What if being powerful is standing in your own truth and not backing down no matter who challenges you?​

What if it is not being showy or over-the-top with your ‘righteousness’?  

Just being strong in what is right for you and holding true to it--that is powerful.  In today’s crazy and often superficial world, that sort of strength is a rarity. 

I have been being challenged in this very thing lately.  I am having trouble with my boyfriend.  We have been together for eight years.  I have loved and supported him throughout.  I have been realizing lately that especially now, I don’t receive that in return.  No one is here for me.  And, for some reason, I have been ‘okay’ with it all this time.  Last week, when I finally realized this, I could not hold it in any longer.  I cried my eyes out when I told him that my needs were not being met.  I could no longer be the ‘one everyone relies on’, but not have anyone to rely on or lean on myself.  I needed some emotional support from him.  This opening up was such a hard thing to do. 

In this letting out my feelings, I realized I finally felt strong enough to stay true to how I really felt.  For once, I wasn’t questioning my own feelings or pushing them away.  I knew what I felt was absolutely true for me and was absolutely right for me to be expressing to him, my partner.  I finally ‘had my own back’.  And, I wasn’t backing down. 

You see, I have a LONG history of questioning myself, and of questioning my feelings.  It started when I was quite young, and my parents reprimanded me for feeling the way I did about their rules and regulations.  A ‘good girl’ always wears long pants and shirts.  A ‘good girl’ is always quiet and doesn’t disagree with an adult speaking.  This continued on throughout my childhood.  When my feelings did not fit, when they were not ‘appropriate’ for the situation I was in, I learned to push them down and not feel them.  And, then, as all children do, I internalized my parents’ voices so that I continued that cycle of reprimanding myself for feeling the way I did and if they were ‘inappropriate’ for the situation at hand, throughout my adolescence and into adulthood.  I learned to push my feelings down and ‘forget’ them. 

The thing is, I didn’t forget them. 

My body/my psyche remembered them.  They just held them for me, patiently, until I was ready to confront them.  This holding has shown up in my depressed feelings and in my weight.  It has shown up in my feelings of insecurity, low confidence, and indecision in making almost any decision, small or large.  In finally dealing with all of this, I have had to learn to trust myself.

That has started with embracing how I feel as I feel it.  I have been uncovering all of these deep dark hidden feelings and letting myself actually feel them.  I am finally learning that instead of questioning every feeling that shows up, I can embrace it and learn from it.   Those emotions—they are the key to knowing where I am in relationship to the particular topic, person, or situation I am dealing with.  My feelings don’t define me, but are an important way to understand what I want and where I am at in a particular moment. 

Embracing my feelings has made me strong.  I finally trust myself now.  I know that my feelings are here for a reason, and I can deal with them as they come.  I don’t have to hide them or push them away.  And, only by feeling them can I learn what it is that I really want and what decision is best for me to take.  I can stand strong in who I am because I embrace who I am and where I am, through my feelings.  And, because my feelings are mine, and mine alone, I don’t have to prove myself to anyone else.  I already know where I am at, and it doesn’t matter if anyone else understands.  I understand.  I feel how I feel and that is absolutely all I can do, and all I must do to know what is right for me. 

This power is amazing and such a relief.  I no longer have to justify every single decision I make to all the people in my life, because I have already become clear about it inside myself.  There is no reason to justify it to anyone else.  I can state how I feel and what I have decided and move on.   End of conversation. 

And, I am learning that being powerful doesn’t mean exerting any power on anyone else, because everyone has their own right to choose what is right for them.  Being powerful, for me, is just standing in my own truth.  It is just ‘having my own back.’  It is allowing for all the crazy, non-sensical emotions to happen, and hold on to myself through them.  It is using them as tools to know what is right for me, and for me alone, and then backing myself up—knowing I have chosen the right path for me, and me alone. 

By Ruchi Jain

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