Many of us are craving the ability to be fully authentic, to be real, to be seen and loved as who we truly are. We are collectively longing to have a visceral experience of our true creativity, power and beauty, undiluted and unmitigated by the limiting structures of the wider culture. Each of us holds the potential to bring our original selves forth into a way that transforms our world. The time is ripe for whatever you want to bring forward.

Will you come forward? 

Whatever external permission you are waiting for is not coming. The only permission that can liberate you is your own.

Potency is embodying your indisputable value and giftedness.

We are out of integrity when we discount and devalue ourselves. It’s time to finally dump the idea that self-diminishment is noble. The biggest gift we can give others is the example of our own lives working, stepping forward in our power and being who we truly are without apology, without shame, but with a sense of inner blessedness and celebration.

Potency is the flower of legitimacy. Claim your legitimacy and right to take up space. 

We can’t embody our potency if we don’t first feel truly legitimate. No one and nothing from the outside can confer the feeling of legitimacy that we crave, yet this is the foundation for everything else.

Legitimacy is the sense of basic worthiness and goodness. The time for developing that was when we were small children and our mother conferred to us a sense of legitimacy through her own felt sense of belonging in the world. If she did not feel she belonged, our basic sense of legitimacy and value was compromised. We cannot go back in time and get this sense of legitimacy; we can only mourn that lost opportunity and create for ourselves the inner legitimacy we crave.

Because our mothers grew up in patriarchal cultures, we each have a sense of being lost to some degree. And while it feels like a wound, once it is embraced, it actually transforms into a gift–leading us to the depth and authenticity that we crave; the feeling of legitimacy that we long for.

I think it’s no accident that the story goes that Jesus Christ was an “illegitimate child.” I think the truth it points to is that we all start to some degree with a feeling of being illegitimate, i.e., not good enough, bad, wrong, defected, etc. One could even say that that is the basic human wound–feeling illegitimate and somehow bad or wrong.

Feeling illegitimate ignites the search for the true legitimacy of our Being and ultimately, the potency to carry our purpose forth in the world!

Legitimacy is the right to be, the right to flourish and act as an entity with agency and power. Despite cultural messages that tell us otherwise, we are each legitimate by the fact that we exist, that we are. Life itself has given us legitimacy by the fact that we were born. We feel this more and more as we remove the layers of limiting beliefs and traumatic residues that cover our essence.

Our essence, our spirit-self is that spark of potency. The more we trust it, the brighter it shines through our human form, the clearer its guidance becomes and the greater the transformation we offer to those around us, by virtue of vibrating with our potency.

The solidity of the felt-sense of legitimacy forms a kind of container to hold that spark of potency within. The container of legitimacy supports our potency and allows it to flourish. One could even say that your basic sense of legitimacy is the human container for the potency of your God/Goddess-Self.

Owning your potency is the undefended courage to live and embody the undiluted truth of your Being, no matter the cost. 

Owning your potency is living as essence, beyond the personal ego. It is surrendering to your deepest truth and trusting wherever it leads you, even if your mind thinks it should look different. It takes guts and fortitude to do this. Are you willing?

Ultimately, it’s about dismantling the inner walls that form the individual ego-self that feels it has to defend itself against life. When these walls come down, your personal will merges with the divine will like a stream meeting the ocean. Suddenly, there is a power living within you that provides incredible energy, support and inspiration. You are no longer a single wave in the ocean, you are the ocean itself.

What is standing in the way of you living in alignment with what you know is true for you? What is that costing you?

We have to look at how we’ve been brainwashed into self-flagellation and reclaim our life force by choosing new thoughts and beliefs that accurately reflect and articulate what we know is true. Many women hit a ceiling right before a major breakthrough. We tend to first look for external permission to thrive, to succeed, to excel. Patriarchy has gaslighted women into believing in our lack of value or power. The legacy is long, and the beliefs deeply entrenched. Our mothers and grandmothers had no choice but to believe and pass those beliefs down to us. We have to legitimize ourselves in ways our mothers could not. There’s no other way. As the saying goes, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Don’t seek permission. Soar. 

There is no excuse not to follow your dreams. Now is the time. Don’t underestimate the effects of simply making a powerful decision to do so. Trust that whatever follows this decision will be exactly what is needed to bring it about. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. Nothing compares to the bliss of living from the depths of your Being.

Art credit: The Sea-Horse Effect by Lyse of Imagine Studio. You can find her work here on Etsy