Pain as Your Portal to Power

For a long time, I carried the unspoken weight of sadness, grief, loss, anxiety, and the persistent undercurrent of doubt that I wouldn’t be supported. The belief that if I asked for too much or felt too deeply, I would be abandoned. These were the wounds left behind by trauma. And they lived in my nervous system and informed the way I showed up in the world.

I believed that if anyone saw the depth of what I carried, if they knew how often I questioned my worth, how tightly I held myself together through the anxiety and depression, how afraid I was of being and needing too much, they would see me as damaged. Defective. Undesirable. Unacceptable. So I carried the weight of those wounds in secret. I didn’t talk about the anxiety that pressed against my chest or the shutdown that made it hard to feel alive and present. I didn’t talk about the doubt that crept in even during moments of success, or the emotional flatness that came not from indifference, but from years of disconnecting to survive.

I, in my aloneness, carried it all—quietly, competently, and completely unseen. The world often interpreted that as strength. But what looked like resilience on the outside was actually a practiced, inherited silence—one rooted in stoicism, in strength, in the belief that survival required suppression. It was the kind of silence passed down through generations, born from necessity, from systems that didn’t allow space for softness or struggle. I had learned to endure with grace, to carry pain without showing it, to function through the ache. That endurance was what made me successful, but it with it came deep, emotional pain.

I didn’t move gracefully into healing. I fought it. I fought the parts of me I didn’t want to admit were there—the fear, the grief, the ache of not being chosen. I clung to achievement and success because they made me feel safe. I convinced myself that if I were enough and did enough, I wouldn’t have to feel what lived underneath. But the pain didn’t go away. It just found new ways to surface—through anxiety, through exhaustion, through the quiet sense that no matter how much I did, it was never enough.

Eventually, I couldn’t fight it anymore, because fighting was only creating more suffering. So I surrendered to it from pure exhaustion. And in that surrender, I did something I had never fully done before—I turned toward the parts of myself I had spent a lifetime running from. I stopped trying to push them down, to silence them, or to fix them. Instead, I sat with them and I listened.

And when I finally met those parts with compassion, something shifted.

Not all at once. Not in some dramatic moment of clarity. But slowly, over years of doing the work, of showing up to the mess, of telling myself the truth. And, I began to see that those wounded places weren’t what made me broken. They were what made me Human.

And as I stayed with that truth, something deeper emerged. I realized those very wounds had taught me how to track what goes unspoken. How to sit with others in their pain because I had learned, finally, how to sit with my own. How to feel what others feel—even when they can't name it yet.

What I once believed made me less than, in fact, prepared me. The pain I carried wasn’t in the way of my path—it had been carving it all along.

The Alchemy of Pain: From Wounds to Wisdom

We’re often told that healing is about leaving pain behind. That if we do the right things—therapy, meditation, think positively, we can move on. But that idea sets us up for shame when the ache returns, when the old patterns resurface, when the grief still flickers beneath the surface of a good day. Real healing doesn’t mean you never feel the pain again. It means the pain no longer holds you hostage.

Because when you stop running from your story and start learning from it, something profound happens. You stop seeing your wounds as liabilities and start recognizing them as guides. The fear, the grief, the doubt—they aren’t detours. They’re data. They hold the map back to yourself. They carry the truth of what shaped you and what still needs attention.

This is the shift that turns pain into power, because you stayed with it long enough to let it teach you. And what pain teaches us is wisdom. Not surface-level insight or a positive reframe, but earned knowing, the kind that comes from walking through fire and carrying your story all the way home.

Wisdom that says: I’ve been there. I understand. Wisdom that lets you hold space for others without needing to fix them. Wisdom that gives you clarity in chaos, grace in conflict, and a rooted sense of who you are, even when your life may feel a mess.

This is the power that comes from integration. From turning toward the wound instead of away. From reclaiming every part of your story, not as evidence of your brokenness—but as a process of you becoming who you are meant to be.

From Reactive to Responsive: Empowered Decision-Making

When you haven’t made peace with your story, it drives your life from the backseat. You may not realize it at first, but it’s there—underneath the overthinking, the overcommitting, the hesitation, the hypervigilance. You’re not reacting to what’s in front of you. You’re reacting to every echo of what came before.

This is what it feels like to live in survival mode. You might call it stress or burnout, but what’s often underneath is the nervous system quietly asking, Am I safe? Am I supported? Can I trust this?

I’ve made decisions from that reactive place. I’ve said yes when I meant no. I’ve gone above and beyond to avoid being judged or rejected. I’ve remained silent to keep the peace when I should have spoken up. I’ve pushed through when my body was urging me to rest. This is what happens when we haven’t yet claimed our pain. It doesn’t disappear. It just reroutes itself into present behaviors—into urgency, people-pleasing, and performance.

But when you’ve done the work of turning toward your story, you begin to make space. The panic that once screamed becomes a whisper. The urgency loses its grip. You start to feel the difference between what’s present now and what’s old. And in that space, you begin to make decisions from truth instead of trauma.

You stop asking, What do I need to do to get through this? And you begin asking, What would best serve me here?

That one shift changes everything. Because survival-mode decisions are reactive, they’re about minimizing threat, avoiding rejection, and staying small enough to stay safe. Empowered decisions are responsive. They come from presence, from alignment, from self-leadership. They’re rooted in values, not fear.

This doesn’t mean you’ll never feel afraid. It means fear doesn’t get to drive.
You get to pause.
You get to check in.
You get to choose.

And over time, those choices build a different life. Not one that’s shaped by avoiding pain, but one that’s shaped by honoring what you’ve lived through and choosing what you’re ready to create next.

How to Make Empowered Decisions When Your Old Story Keeps Running the Show

It’s not like you cross some invisible finish line where your old story disappears forever.
Healing is more like tending a fire—sometimes it burns steadily, sometimes it flares, and sometimes you have to rekindle it from embers. Even after years of deep work, your nervous system still carries the echoes. Old stories resurface—often in the moments you’re reaching for more, standing at the edge of change, or daring to take up new space.

The work isn’t to eliminate the story. It’s not just about spotting the story when it shows up. It’s about pausing to thank it for the ways it once protected you, for the safety it gave you when you didn’t have other tools. And then, with compassion, let it know you no longer need it to lead. From that place, you choose your response.

Here’s what I return to when I feel myself slipping back into the old scripts:

1. Recognize When Your Story Shows Up. It often starts as a surge in the body—a twinge in your gut, a charge in your chest, a little jolt of electricity under your skin. This is usually the first sign of activation, and your story and survival pattern follow closely behind. Before you may even be aware of it, your nervous system is already moving into a familiar pattern—people-pleasing, saying yes when you want to say no, or polishing every detail to perfection so no one can find fault.

When you feel the urge, pause. Notice the pattern that’s about to run. Then ask yourself:
What’s the story underneath this?

Maybe it’s, “If I say no, they’ll think I’m selfish.”
Or, “If I don’t do this perfectly, everyone will notice.”
Or, “If I don’t agree, they’ll stop inviting me.”
Or, “If I ask for help, they’ll think I can’t handle it.”

Sometimes that story comes with a trauma response—your body bracing for impact before anything even happens. Naming it for what it is interrupts the autopilot. And that moment of awareness is your first act of ownership.

2. Anchor in the Body.  Your body is the place your story lives.  When an old story gets activated, your mind takes over — racing through all the possible outcomes, rehearsing what to say, calculating how to protect yourself. The fastest way to interrupt that spiral is to get out of your head and back into your body.

That’s where the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique comes in. By naming five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you hear, two things you smell, and one thing you taste, you’re pulling your awareness into the present moment.

When you’re fully present, you can notice the actual sensations that go with your story’s activation — maybe you feel a rush of heat in your chest, shoulders tightening, clenching in your jaw, a lump in your throat, or a sinking feeling in your stomach. These physical cues are your early warning signs. You don’t need to analyze them. Just name them. Naming them, alone, brings you into the present moment, where the power of choice lies. Once you can feel them, you have the power to pause, breathe, and choose a different response.

3. Ask the Right Question. Most of us were taught to ask, “What do I need to do to get through this?” This is a survival response.  Ownership and empowered decision-making ask, “What would serve me right now?”

Sometimes the answer will be rest.
Sometimes it’ll be boundaries.

Sometimes it’ll encourage you to be kind to yourself.
Sometimes it’ll be telling the truth you’ve been holding in.

This question brings you back to you. Not the past. Not the projections. Not the protective patterns. You.

4. Ritualize the Rewrite. Your nervous system craves repetition. So give it new things to repeat. A new mantra. A daily check-in. A weekly reflection.

Here are a few phrases that have helped me:

• “That was then. This is now.”

• “My story is not a life sentence—it’s a portal to my truth”

• “I am safe enough to choose differently.”

• “I want a different experience.”

Write your own. Put it on a sticky note. Say it out loud. Let them take root in your nervous system.  Don’t just say the words, feel them in your body.”  This is how you rewrite the narrative.

How Using Your Pain as Power Transforms Your Life and Relationships

When you use your pain as fuel instead of running from it, everything shifts—often in ways you never expected. In leadership, you stop leading from fear of being wrong and start leading from a grounded sense of vision. In intimacy, you meet your partner from a place of emotional honesty, rather than trying to be who you think they want you to be. In family, you can honor what was passed down without repeating it, breaking cycles with compassion instead of resentment.

Once you’ve claimed your story, it no longer controls you. You can choose connection over protection, presence over perfection. And from here, every decision you make, whether at home, at work, or in the world, comes from a place of power, not survival.

Next month, we’ll explore what happens when you stand in this place of ownership and begin to consciously author new stories that expand your future rather than repeat your past.