Social media says there is power and 'divine wisdom' inside every woman – what age did you lose yours?
And more importantly, how to get it back ✨
I don’t know if we should be taking too much serious advice from Instagram – I’m not sure it’s the most reliable source, with anyone able to talk about anything – but if I’m really honest about this, I’ve learned a lot from social media.
From working out how to treat PCOS, the menstrual cycle, dumbbell exercises and recipes to advice on running a business, everything is accessible to us – including plenty of things I never considered before.
So one of my biggest Instagram rabbit holes started when I was presented with reels about ‘feminine energy’, which is something I don’t think I had ever given a single thought to, but it struck me immediately (well done, algorithm: you well and truly got me here).
I’ve always felt masculine. Even before I knew what it was, I knew that I was a doer; ambitious, driven – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I like those qualities – but ultimately, trying to control every aspect of my life and take everything on myself has caused me much more harm than good.
At the very least, I knew I wasn’t a ‘girly girl’ – but that isn’t the truth.
Masculinity as a trauma response
I thought ‘energy’ was woo woo, but we’ve all experienced the reels and the TikToks that feel like personal attacks, and when I started to see videos about ‘eldest daughter syndrome’ and how it feels to live in your protective masculine as a woman, I couldn’t help but watch.
Tough. Strong. Fierce. Independent. Read: exhausted overachiever, completely out of sync with herself.
I’ve also spent years researching the impact of trauma on the body and somatic healing, so I know that the concept of energies isn’t given the airtime it deserves.
Every single one of us has trauma. The language around this isn’t all that helpful in my view, with ‘major’ and ‘minor’ traumas (if you thought about arcanas then, I see you) – but ultimately any kind of trauma leaves an imprint on the brain and the body. This can be detrimental to our connection to ourselves.
Emily Tuck, an experienced holistic practitioner, coach and mentor for women, explained to me how society isn’t set up to encourage connection to either ourselves or even other women.
“If we as women could be ‘more this’ or ‘less that’ – we are constantly fighting with ourselves to be ‘good enough’. It doesn't matter what we choose, we are judged by others. If we are a mother, suddenly we are ‘just’ a mother. If we can't have children we are pitied; if we choose actively not to have children we are judged.”
Ain’t that the truth.
Emily went on to explain that ultimately as women we are “set up to lose”.
“Women who are powerful are dismissed, attacked or belittled,” and it’s so engrained that we even turn on each other in the same way. Emily told me about the ‘witch wound’ (fears around being seen, speaking up, being different), and the ‘sister wound’, (fears around trust and acceptance with other women), which ultimately breed jealousy, comparison and living in fear of the ‘witch-hunt’, a 15th century concept and a phrase still used in mainstream society today.
God forbid we be spiritual; a bit different; a bit ‘quirky’; our true, unique selves – people will come for us if we do. And that, sister, is the loss of your power.
Wendy Gannon, Founder of Female Five Million, an initiative that exposes the realities of abuse, knows all about how women lose our power.
“Losing power doesn’t always look dramatic from the outside. It can be quiet. It’s not speaking up in a meeting, not because she doesn’t have something to say, but because she’s learned it’s not always safe to use her voice. It’s apologising for taking up space, in her work, her relationships, even in a photograph.
The women I work with are inherently powerful, it’s society and our conditioning that tells her she’s not.”
“To lose your power is often to lose your sense of self. And for many women, especially those who’ve been told they’re ‘too much’ or ‘not enough’ all their lives, that loss can feel so normal they don’t even realise it’s happened.”
The “good girl” narrative
Wendy intelligently suggested that women don’t actually have much that resembles power to begin with – it’s not just about ‘losing’ something, but never having it in the first place.
“We’re told from a very young age to sit down, be quiet, be good – that boys will be boys. Then we see the media, the ridiculous beauty standards, the system, the patriarchy. We’re told that we must marry well and have a family (something that can put our life on hold for years). Clothing sizes that are different in every shop. Micro-aggressions that happen daily. Then there’s the gender pay/health/pension/everything gap.”
The term ‘everything gap’ will absolutely be a part of my vocabulary now.
These childhood experiences of being ‘seen and not heard’ – that’s another social media trend I have personally enjoyed: IYKYN – breed shame within us, and as adults, any power we do have inside “disappears slowly”, Wendy explained.
“A thousand tiny messages telling us to shrink, being spoken over, judged on how we choose to cover ourselves, to be palatable, to prioritise everyone else’s comfort over our own truth.”
“Sometimes it’s cultural. Sometimes it’s generational. Sometimes it’s a single moment, like a cruel comment or a traumatic experience, that disconnects us from our own brilliance. From knowing who we are.”
Survival mode
So many of us are living in ways that prioritise anything but ourselves, resulting in “women who are successful on paper but feel flat inside”, Wendy says.
We can be doing so much and feeling so little – and what we do feel is scarcely positive, especially when it comes to ourselves.
“[It can look like] a woman who’s been in survival mode for so long she doesn’t remember what joy feels like. And yet, she’s still showing up. She’s still caring. Still holding everything together. That’s what’s so powerful about the women I work with, they haven’t lost their power completely. It’s just buried.”
“When we’re disconnected from our power, we’re disconnected from ourselves.”
How we get our power back
Knowing where to start can be tricky – I knew that my protective, fearful masculine nature was so deeply engrained in me that it was overshadowing my personality. So much of it seems to be about figuring out who we really are underneath it all – so how do we reclaim ourselves?
“Power comes back when we reconnect with our voice, our values, and our vision for how we want to live,” Wendy explained, and from my own experience, it’s largely a felt sense more than a thought process. It’s feeling your own intuition, trusting your own wisdom, taking charge of your own life. You intuitively know what’s right for you and what isn’t, so are you going to listen?
“It comes back through joy, creating solid boundaries, choosing ourselves without guilt and lifting each other up.
We won’t be quiet any more.”