48. Why Real Empowerment Feels Wrong Before It Feels Right
Your brain equates the familiar with safe. Even when the familiar is burnout, overwork, and being everyone's go-to person. Even when the familiar means putting yourself last.
That's why when you finally take that vacation, set that boundary, or step into a bigger role, something unexpected happens. Instead of feeling powerful, you feel guilty. Instead of feeling free, you feel like you're doing something wrong. But real empowerment doesn't arrive with fanfare and instant confidence. It shows up as discomfort, as your old identity fights to pull you back.
Tune in this week as I break down why empowerment feels wrong before it feels right, and how to navigate the messy middle between who you were and who you're becoming. You'll discover why your system rebels against positive change, how to recognize growth disguised as discomfort, and practical ways to stay the course when every part of you wants to retreat to old patterns.
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Interested in working with me? Book a free 1:1 consultation here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why your nervous system treats positive changes as threats and tries to pull you back to familiar patterns.
The three main culprits behind the guilt that surfaces when stepping into empowerment.
What "empowerment reps" are and how tracking them builds evidence of your transformation
Why rest and receiving feel unsafe when you've built your identity on productivity and self-sufficiency.
The difference between changing what you do versus changing who you are at the identity level.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Your Sacred Self by Wayne W. Dyer
Full Episode Transcript:
You know what most high-achieving women think empowerment will feel like? Like they finally are in control. Like walking into every room with calm confidence and command. Like I've finally arrived. But here's the truth no one tells you. Real empowerment, it feels weird. It feels disorienting. It feels like guilt. It feels like mile 18 of a marathon, your legs screaming, your brain wondering why you signed up. It feels like lying on a beach on vacation and instead of relaxing, your head is buzzing. What should I be doing? Did I forget to do something? Am I wasting my time?
It feels like saying no to the thing you've always said yes to and lying awake at night thinking, who am I becoming? If your identity has been built on output, performance, and being the reliable one, this episode is going to feel personal. Because empowerment doesn't feel like a straight shot to confidence. It feels wrong before it feels right. And today, we're going to talk about why and how to keep going until the new you feels like home.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
All right, podcast listeners, welcome to episode number 48. We are talking about identity shifts and why empowerment feels so wrong before it feels right. I wanted to bring this episode to light because I recently wrote an email. If you're part of my newsletter, you would have gotten it. It is about how discomfort is different than lack of confidence. Right? Oftentimes with my clients, when they are starting to test things out, when they are making different choices in their life, they can sometimes tell me, whoa, I felt like a lack of confidence or I felt really shaky.
And what I do as a coach is I help explain the difference between expectation versus the reality of empowerment. Because when we are making new moves, when we are taking bold steps, if we are taking risks that we haven't done before, oftentimes it feels much different than what we think it will feel like. Oftentimes it will feel uncomfortable, it will feel challenging, and it won't be like what most people expect empowerment to feel like, which is smooth. That once they get there, the hard part is over. We think confidence will just click into place. Once we make a choice of how we're going to show up, we somehow think like we have arrived, and we are in this place where we are choosing and life is great.
But here's the reality. Your old identity will fight for its life. If you've heard the phrase that systems seek to reinforce themselves, is basically like when you're in a system and you're changing things up, oftentimes everyone in that system, right? So if you think maybe about your family, maybe this is a good example. You want to move to another country and start a new life. And your family is like, no, they're giving you all of the reasons why you should stay. And all of those reasons are probably more about them than about you. But if you allow the way that they think and feel about you to impact you, then you will want to return to your old views of life and say maybe I don't really want to move to another country even though it's been my dream.
What happens is not only your internal system but the external system around you will oftentimes seek for you to be the same because that feels safer. It feels safer to stay put. It feels safer to be closer to home. Your nervous system will beg you to return to the familiar, even if the familiar isn't you living your dream. Even if the familiar is not great for you, even if the familiar is burnout. It will have you wanting to return to that safety. And because you've always been good because I know there's a lot of brilliant high-achieving women out there, that you won't feel so great.
And when you're doing something new, you'll hate suddenly feeling clumsy, off balance, or even unsure. And you'll wonder, why am I second-guessing myself? What's going on here? That's not failure. That's the process. Because empowerment isn't just about changing what you do, it's changing who you are. And that shakes the foundation. Sometimes I have my clients, they are like, wow, I can't believe I'm so successful. And they have the role that they always wanted, but they start noticing they're second-guessing themselves. They're really questioning themselves because they're in these new spaces that are bigger.
And what I like to reframe this for people as is this is not a confidence-shaking thing that's happening. What's happening is that there's the old identity of who you thought you were and there's the new identity of who you are in your current life and who you could become. And there's a recalibration that needs to happen. And in that recalibration is you creating new ways of thinking about yourself, creating new possibilities for yourself, creating new narratives for yourself, expanding your emotional capacity to feel more things because you are in more and more of the unknown.
So empowerment actually doesn't feel super comfortable. It feels like discomfort. And so when I talk to my clients about how they sometimes are wondering, I don't feel super confident. I sometimes like to peel back the layers and explain to them that this discomfort is actually growth. But we need to discern the growing pieces. We need to discern the choices that you're making that are actually interrupting the old pattern because this is empowerment, but this is also recalibration to your identity that you're currently living and that you are continuing to grow into.
So, let me use an analogy. I'm going to use a few different analogies to really bring this home because it's such an important point. I think people oftentimes they go and they want to make a big change in their life. And then all of a sudden they start are full of self-doubt and they think something's gone wrong. But actually, they are on the path of empowerment. You are on the path of empowerment if you are starting to choose new ways of thinking, new results for yourself, and you're starting to take risk towards the direction of the life that you want to lead. Some people might not like it.
But let's talk about this analogy about marathon training and weight loss. Think about training for a marathon. Day one, you're excited. You got the new shoes, you've got the playlist, you've got a training plan, you picture yourself at the finish line. You're getting your medal. You're so excited. Week two, you're sore in places you didn't know existed. You're running slower than you ever thought you would. And you're wondering, why did I sign up for this? That moment, the moment when we're starting to question ourselves, it isn't proof that you're failing. It is the training ground. This is what it feels like to be on the journey. Same with weight loss.
The first few pounds come off, you feel amazing. Then you hit a plateau. Suddenly you're doubting the whole freaking thing. That's discomfort. It's not a detour. It's proof your system is adapting. You're building endurance for the next version of you. Empowerment works the same way. Most of you may know my daughter is going to turn two in November, and I have been on a journey to lose weight without drugs, without anything except for pure hard work, exercise, and discipline. And I was doing great. I was losing weight, I was gaining muscle, losing weight, it was great. And then the thing started not working, right?
And then I was like, what's going on? And I was like, something's wrong. And I was going to take a bunch of hormone tests to see what's going on with my body. But actually, before I decided to do that, I said, what if I just got back on my food protocol? What if I just got more disciplined again? Because I think part of it is you feel a little complacent when you're always losing and you're like, I'm doing it, it's great. But your body does recalibrate. My body's like, okay, we're used to this. And I started allowing myself to be more in maintenance mode than weight loss mode. And when I was more in that maintenance mode, I wasn't losing weight.
And so I actually stopped myself. I interrupted myself before I was like, let me go find out what's wrong with me. I just said, actually, let's get back on protocol. And guess what? I've lost more weight. I've lost more fat than I thought I would, but that is because I recalibrated to where I am now, and I relooked at all of these things. It's important to do that because that path to empowerment, right? It doesn't always just go one directional. You're going to have to troubleshoot. You're going to have to ask yourself what's happening.
And there's the old identity of like, oh, it's just really hard for me versus that new identity of, we're going to figure this out. We're going to go to school on this and then we're going to keep troubleshooting it. And my thought was in my mind, hey, if it still isn't working, you know, when I recommit to my food protocol, let me see what's going to happen. But I'm glad I proved myself wrong because the discipline and the challenges that I have for myself are working and in the very best way. Like, I'm so proud of myself for how I'm doing this. But it doesn't always feel great, right? This back and forth and this questioning of yourself.
Let me share another story about vacation guilt because one of my clients, let's call her Sarah, she is the reliable one. She holds everything together at work and at home, and everyone always leans on her. And finally, she took a two-week vacation just for herself to plan, rest, explore, and have fun. And so she is like just in this space where she is learning to put herself first.
By day three, she called me from her hotel balcony and she was like, I feel guilty. She said, I keep thinking about what I should be doing, who I should be checking on, doing something productive, making sure everyone's okay. Her old identity, the reliable one was screaming. This isn't you. We don't rest. We don't just disappear. We don't just indulge in vacation for ourselves. We stay in control and we are helping people. Her brain was trying to drag her back to the grind.
I told her, this is the work. You are right where you need to be. This is empowerment. It's not about learning to sprint harder. It's about learning to sit with the discomfort of putting yourself first, of expanding beyond the identity of the one who carries everyone else. And here's the truth. If you've built your value on productivity, rest will feel unsafe. Putting your well-being first will feel unsafe. Stillness will feel like failure. But that's not the truth. That's conditioning. And in order to interrupt and break that conditioning, you need to do exactly that, not do all of the things. You actually need to sit back and relax.
And I actually had very similar feeling when I moved from New York to London and in London, people really valued their vacation time. People weren't always calling you. You weren't working the weekends. I know in some industries you might, but in my particular industry, unless it was budget season or a big M&A project, I wasn't going to be working the weekends. I just remember feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm in London and I don't have a busy schedule. I don't have work to do. I actually didn't have a huge social life because I just moved there. And so I had these massive amounts of unstructured time to just to myself. And I just remember, I distinctly remember taking a bath and feeling so uncomfortable and just being like, what am I doing here? I should be doing something.
And I was reading some self-help book and it was literally about, I think it was called The Sacred Heart. I'll have to look it up, but it was something really about grounding yourself in the here and now and being in the discomfort of the unknown. And that's exactly what I needed to do to empower myself, to let go of all of the things that I felt like I had to do and to be with this open unstructured space. That is empowerment.
That's why this work is so important and why it's so important to notice when you're uncomfortable, this is actually growing. This is actually empowerment. But it's not going to feel great. It's not even, may not even feel safe in your body, but you have to calm yourself down and remind yourself and get into that prefrontal cortex where you are imagining yourself living this life for the next five years.
It takes time, right? We have years and years of programming of telling us what's safe and what's not safe. And we need to reorient ourselves. We need to recalibrate to our future self and take care of ourselves in this way and know that this is part of the journey.
So let me share this last final story about myself and meeting my husband. Before I met my husband, I had lots of patterns. I chose relationships where I could be in control. So I often dated people that were not as successful as I was and I was very self-sufficient. I never really needed anyone. And independence was so important to me. That was my safety. Then I met my husband and suddenly I had to learn how to receive love without earning it.
I remember a time distinctly, he was so excited to pick me up and take me to work. I thought he was the biggest weirdo. And looking back, I was like, he was so sweet. But I remember him being like, he would just openly tell me, I'm so excited to see you today and to take you to work. And I was like, what is wrong with this person? And I had to let someone see me unpolished. I had to soften my walls and it was deeply uncomfortable.
And there were moments I wanted to retreat, to go back to safety, to go back to the old me, to go back to dating men that were really not emotionally mature and not emotionally available. But here's the thing about growth. Every upgrade in your identity will trigger the part of you, your loyal part to that old identity. And that loyal part shows up as guilt, doubt, or even fear. And I was lucky enough to be in a coaching group where I was getting coached on this because I was like, I finally met a man who is really self-sufficient and isn't intimidated by me and doesn't want anything for me except to show up and adore me and take care of me and to spend time with me. And my whole system was like, this is, there's something wrong with this.
And so if you don't understand that it's normal, you'll end up sabotaging the very growth you asked for. And luckily for me, I was in this group container where my coach literally was like, what is so wrong with being just adored for you being you and not needing to chase anything, not needing to prove yourself. And I was just like, oh my gosh, I feel out of control. It doesn't feel normal to me, right? So I want you to invite yourself into this idea that the road to empowerment is going to feel wrong before it feels right. So why does guilt feel so intense when you're stepping into empowerment?
There are three things that actually cause this guilt to show up. Number one is familiarity bias. Your brain equates known with safe. The new you, she's unknown. Alarm bells are going off. It's like, oh, you don't date people like this or you don't go on vacation this long. Who do you think you are? Right? That's what that familiarity bias sounds like. Or it could sound like, oh, you don't push back on authority figures. What are you doing?
The next thing is cultural conditioning, especially for women. We are oftentimes the giver, the fixer, the peacekeeper, the reliable one. Anything else is selfish. So culturally that comes up. I have so much mom guilt, and if I talk to my mom, I have even much more mom guilt because her conditioning has even been stronger than mine that you are the woman and you've got to be the one that's taking care of your kid or else you should feel guilty. You need to know that this cultural conditioning is there and it controls the way we think and feel about ourselves if we don't interrupt that pattern. If we don't see that there is more to you as a woman, a high-achieving woman than be the fixer, the giver, the peacekeeper. You are a leader. You are a leader and you are entitled to leading a life that's for you, just for you, taking care of you.
And yes, there is society that might say that this is selfish. But part of when I was starting to really own my empowerment was to really accept the feeling of selfishness because I was like, this is a feeling that I need to grow in my emotional capacity to feel in order to recalibrate to the woman that I want to be. An empowered woman may not feel selfish once she's empowered, but the path to becoming an empowered woman may feel full of selfishness, guilt, and a lot of questioning because there is that old identity trying to pull you back.
So of course, the last thing is loss of the old identity. You're grieving the version of you that overworked, over-delivered, overgave, even when she was exhausted, right? And so sometimes we might feel nostalgic to this old version of ourselves. And what I always like to say is let's have compassion for ourselves to say she did the best she could with what she knew at that time. And this discomfort that I'm having now is because I'm choosing new choices and I'm choosing to become more of somebody that I am aligned to that's more empowered, that's more elevated, that's more bringing possibilities and expansion to my life.
So here's the reframe. Guilt is not proof you're wrong. It's proof that you're transforming. And then the final piece is really about how to stay the course, right? When empowerment feels wrong, here is how to stay in course. You want to name it. This feels hard because it's new, not because it's bad. And you actually want to discern what feels hard and what feels bad, right? Because what could feel bad is maybe you have these thoughts that if you're a good daughter, then you X, Y and Z.
And that might have been an old thought pattern that you had or an old belief system that you had, but the person that you're becoming is like, I am a woman who is empowered and there for herself and does things out of love, not obligation. That was one that was really big for me. And that helped me see that even though I had this thought that I'm being a bad daughter, I actually could help reframe myself and see that I'm doing things out of love and not obligation. And this next level identity for me is more of who I want to be.
The next thing you want to do is anchor in. Ask, if I were already the woman I'm becoming, what would I do next? You want to anchor in that future self of who you are going to be five years from now and make that decision from the wisdom that she has. And we can look at her because we already know that it's something that we want because we have this idea in our head, this commitment to be this person. And when you do that, it will help you calm your nervous system down, recalibrate in different ways, but this takes reps.
So the third thing is track the reps. Keep a record of every time you resisted the old pattern. Those are your empowerment reps. That's your proof. So for me, my eating protocol, right? When I am actually doing my protocol, I'm taking care of myself and I'm not allowing my old pattern to be like, let's just wing it, right? I know this is empowerment for me. And when I was dating, the more and more I allowed myself to sit with the discomfort of allowing my husband to do things for me without any strings attached that I need to do anything for me, I realized like this is me allowing myself to break this pattern, right?
And the same for my client Sarah, who was just enjoying her dinner. And by the end of it, no, was she like so relaxed? She was much more relaxed. But guess what? A year from now when she went on vacation, she felt a lot less discomfort than she did the first time she called me on that balcony because she had put in her reps and she had worked on this for herself and she could start feeling empowered. But this is the pathway to empowerment.
So, if empowerment feels wrong right now, if you feel guilty, off balance, selfish, even scared, you're not slipping, you're shedding. And if you want someone to walk you through those mile markers until the new you feels inevitable, that's what I do with women every day. This is what is for you to get a coach, for you to get people on your side, to let them know what you're doing and what help you need.
Let's get you off the hamster wheel of proving and into the life and leadership you've been working so hard to deserve because you didn't come this far just to keep being the most overworked, under-rested, undervalued version of yourself. You came this far to become undeniable. And this uncomfortable path is your way to empowerment. So embrace it. Sit, take reps, anchor in it, name it, have fun with it, celebrate it. And I'll see you on the other side of it. Have a beautiful week ahead. Take good care.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
It feels like saying no to the thing you've always said yes to and lying awake at night thinking, who am I becoming? If your identity has been built on output, performance, and being the reliable one, this episode is going to feel personal. Because empowerment doesn't feel like a straight shot to confidence. It feels wrong before it feels right. And today, we're going to talk about why and how to keep going until the new you feels like home.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
All right, podcast listeners, welcome to episode number 48. We are talking about identity shifts and why empowerment feels so wrong before it feels right. I wanted to bring this episode to light because I recently wrote an email. If you're part of my newsletter, you would have gotten it. It is about how discomfort is different than lack of confidence. Right? Oftentimes with my clients, when they are starting to test things out, when they are making different choices in their life, they can sometimes tell me, whoa, I felt like a lack of confidence or I felt really shaky.
And what I do as a coach is I help explain the difference between expectation versus the reality of empowerment. Because when we are making new moves, when we are taking bold steps, if we are taking risks that we haven't done before, oftentimes it feels much different than what we think it will feel like. Oftentimes it will feel uncomfortable, it will feel challenging, and it won't be like what most people expect empowerment to feel like, which is smooth. That once they get there, the hard part is over. We think confidence will just click into place. Once we make a choice of how we're going to show up, we somehow think like we have arrived, and we are in this place where we are choosing and life is great.
But here's the reality. Your old identity will fight for its life. If you've heard the phrase that systems seek to reinforce themselves, is basically like when you're in a system and you're changing things up, oftentimes everyone in that system, right? So if you think maybe about your family, maybe this is a good example. You want to move to another country and start a new life. And your family is like, no, they're giving you all of the reasons why you should stay. And all of those reasons are probably more about them than about you. But if you allow the way that they think and feel about you to impact you, then you will want to return to your old views of life and say maybe I don't really want to move to another country even though it's been my dream.
What happens is not only your internal system but the external system around you will oftentimes seek for you to be the same because that feels safer. It feels safer to stay put. It feels safer to be closer to home. Your nervous system will beg you to return to the familiar, even if the familiar isn't you living your dream. Even if the familiar is not great for you, even if the familiar is burnout. It will have you wanting to return to that safety. And because you've always been good because I know there's a lot of brilliant high-achieving women out there, that you won't feel so great.
And when you're doing something new, you'll hate suddenly feeling clumsy, off balance, or even unsure. And you'll wonder, why am I second-guessing myself? What's going on here? That's not failure. That's the process. Because empowerment isn't just about changing what you do, it's changing who you are. And that shakes the foundation. Sometimes I have my clients, they are like, wow, I can't believe I'm so successful. And they have the role that they always wanted, but they start noticing they're second-guessing themselves. They're really questioning themselves because they're in these new spaces that are bigger.
And what I like to reframe this for people as is this is not a confidence-shaking thing that's happening. What's happening is that there's the old identity of who you thought you were and there's the new identity of who you are in your current life and who you could become. And there's a recalibration that needs to happen. And in that recalibration is you creating new ways of thinking about yourself, creating new possibilities for yourself, creating new narratives for yourself, expanding your emotional capacity to feel more things because you are in more and more of the unknown.
So empowerment actually doesn't feel super comfortable. It feels like discomfort. And so when I talk to my clients about how they sometimes are wondering, I don't feel super confident. I sometimes like to peel back the layers and explain to them that this discomfort is actually growth. But we need to discern the growing pieces. We need to discern the choices that you're making that are actually interrupting the old pattern because this is empowerment, but this is also recalibration to your identity that you're currently living and that you are continuing to grow into.
So, let me use an analogy. I'm going to use a few different analogies to really bring this home because it's such an important point. I think people oftentimes they go and they want to make a big change in their life. And then all of a sudden they start are full of self-doubt and they think something's gone wrong. But actually, they are on the path of empowerment. You are on the path of empowerment if you are starting to choose new ways of thinking, new results for yourself, and you're starting to take risk towards the direction of the life that you want to lead. Some people might not like it.
But let's talk about this analogy about marathon training and weight loss. Think about training for a marathon. Day one, you're excited. You got the new shoes, you've got the playlist, you've got a training plan, you picture yourself at the finish line. You're getting your medal. You're so excited. Week two, you're sore in places you didn't know existed. You're running slower than you ever thought you would. And you're wondering, why did I sign up for this? That moment, the moment when we're starting to question ourselves, it isn't proof that you're failing. It is the training ground. This is what it feels like to be on the journey. Same with weight loss.
The first few pounds come off, you feel amazing. Then you hit a plateau. Suddenly you're doubting the whole freaking thing. That's discomfort. It's not a detour. It's proof your system is adapting. You're building endurance for the next version of you. Empowerment works the same way. Most of you may know my daughter is going to turn two in November, and I have been on a journey to lose weight without drugs, without anything except for pure hard work, exercise, and discipline. And I was doing great. I was losing weight, I was gaining muscle, losing weight, it was great. And then the thing started not working, right?
And then I was like, what's going on? And I was like, something's wrong. And I was going to take a bunch of hormone tests to see what's going on with my body. But actually, before I decided to do that, I said, what if I just got back on my food protocol? What if I just got more disciplined again? Because I think part of it is you feel a little complacent when you're always losing and you're like, I'm doing it, it's great. But your body does recalibrate. My body's like, okay, we're used to this. And I started allowing myself to be more in maintenance mode than weight loss mode. And when I was more in that maintenance mode, I wasn't losing weight.
And so I actually stopped myself. I interrupted myself before I was like, let me go find out what's wrong with me. I just said, actually, let's get back on protocol. And guess what? I've lost more weight. I've lost more fat than I thought I would, but that is because I recalibrated to where I am now, and I relooked at all of these things. It's important to do that because that path to empowerment, right? It doesn't always just go one directional. You're going to have to troubleshoot. You're going to have to ask yourself what's happening.
And there's the old identity of like, oh, it's just really hard for me versus that new identity of, we're going to figure this out. We're going to go to school on this and then we're going to keep troubleshooting it. And my thought was in my mind, hey, if it still isn't working, you know, when I recommit to my food protocol, let me see what's going to happen. But I'm glad I proved myself wrong because the discipline and the challenges that I have for myself are working and in the very best way. Like, I'm so proud of myself for how I'm doing this. But it doesn't always feel great, right? This back and forth and this questioning of yourself.
Let me share another story about vacation guilt because one of my clients, let's call her Sarah, she is the reliable one. She holds everything together at work and at home, and everyone always leans on her. And finally, she took a two-week vacation just for herself to plan, rest, explore, and have fun. And so she is like just in this space where she is learning to put herself first.
By day three, she called me from her hotel balcony and she was like, I feel guilty. She said, I keep thinking about what I should be doing, who I should be checking on, doing something productive, making sure everyone's okay. Her old identity, the reliable one was screaming. This isn't you. We don't rest. We don't just disappear. We don't just indulge in vacation for ourselves. We stay in control and we are helping people. Her brain was trying to drag her back to the grind.
I told her, this is the work. You are right where you need to be. This is empowerment. It's not about learning to sprint harder. It's about learning to sit with the discomfort of putting yourself first, of expanding beyond the identity of the one who carries everyone else. And here's the truth. If you've built your value on productivity, rest will feel unsafe. Putting your well-being first will feel unsafe. Stillness will feel like failure. But that's not the truth. That's conditioning. And in order to interrupt and break that conditioning, you need to do exactly that, not do all of the things. You actually need to sit back and relax.
And I actually had very similar feeling when I moved from New York to London and in London, people really valued their vacation time. People weren't always calling you. You weren't working the weekends. I know in some industries you might, but in my particular industry, unless it was budget season or a big M&A project, I wasn't going to be working the weekends. I just remember feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm in London and I don't have a busy schedule. I don't have work to do. I actually didn't have a huge social life because I just moved there. And so I had these massive amounts of unstructured time to just to myself. And I just remember, I distinctly remember taking a bath and feeling so uncomfortable and just being like, what am I doing here? I should be doing something.
And I was reading some self-help book and it was literally about, I think it was called The Sacred Heart. I'll have to look it up, but it was something really about grounding yourself in the here and now and being in the discomfort of the unknown. And that's exactly what I needed to do to empower myself, to let go of all of the things that I felt like I had to do and to be with this open unstructured space. That is empowerment.
That's why this work is so important and why it's so important to notice when you're uncomfortable, this is actually growing. This is actually empowerment. But it's not going to feel great. It's not even, may not even feel safe in your body, but you have to calm yourself down and remind yourself and get into that prefrontal cortex where you are imagining yourself living this life for the next five years.
It takes time, right? We have years and years of programming of telling us what's safe and what's not safe. And we need to reorient ourselves. We need to recalibrate to our future self and take care of ourselves in this way and know that this is part of the journey.
So let me share this last final story about myself and meeting my husband. Before I met my husband, I had lots of patterns. I chose relationships where I could be in control. So I often dated people that were not as successful as I was and I was very self-sufficient. I never really needed anyone. And independence was so important to me. That was my safety. Then I met my husband and suddenly I had to learn how to receive love without earning it.
I remember a time distinctly, he was so excited to pick me up and take me to work. I thought he was the biggest weirdo. And looking back, I was like, he was so sweet. But I remember him being like, he would just openly tell me, I'm so excited to see you today and to take you to work. And I was like, what is wrong with this person? And I had to let someone see me unpolished. I had to soften my walls and it was deeply uncomfortable.
And there were moments I wanted to retreat, to go back to safety, to go back to the old me, to go back to dating men that were really not emotionally mature and not emotionally available. But here's the thing about growth. Every upgrade in your identity will trigger the part of you, your loyal part to that old identity. And that loyal part shows up as guilt, doubt, or even fear. And I was lucky enough to be in a coaching group where I was getting coached on this because I was like, I finally met a man who is really self-sufficient and isn't intimidated by me and doesn't want anything for me except to show up and adore me and take care of me and to spend time with me. And my whole system was like, this is, there's something wrong with this.
And so if you don't understand that it's normal, you'll end up sabotaging the very growth you asked for. And luckily for me, I was in this group container where my coach literally was like, what is so wrong with being just adored for you being you and not needing to chase anything, not needing to prove yourself. And I was just like, oh my gosh, I feel out of control. It doesn't feel normal to me, right? So I want you to invite yourself into this idea that the road to empowerment is going to feel wrong before it feels right. So why does guilt feel so intense when you're stepping into empowerment?
There are three things that actually cause this guilt to show up. Number one is familiarity bias. Your brain equates known with safe. The new you, she's unknown. Alarm bells are going off. It's like, oh, you don't date people like this or you don't go on vacation this long. Who do you think you are? Right? That's what that familiarity bias sounds like. Or it could sound like, oh, you don't push back on authority figures. What are you doing?
The next thing is cultural conditioning, especially for women. We are oftentimes the giver, the fixer, the peacekeeper, the reliable one. Anything else is selfish. So culturally that comes up. I have so much mom guilt, and if I talk to my mom, I have even much more mom guilt because her conditioning has even been stronger than mine that you are the woman and you've got to be the one that's taking care of your kid or else you should feel guilty. You need to know that this cultural conditioning is there and it controls the way we think and feel about ourselves if we don't interrupt that pattern. If we don't see that there is more to you as a woman, a high-achieving woman than be the fixer, the giver, the peacekeeper. You are a leader. You are a leader and you are entitled to leading a life that's for you, just for you, taking care of you.
And yes, there is society that might say that this is selfish. But part of when I was starting to really own my empowerment was to really accept the feeling of selfishness because I was like, this is a feeling that I need to grow in my emotional capacity to feel in order to recalibrate to the woman that I want to be. An empowered woman may not feel selfish once she's empowered, but the path to becoming an empowered woman may feel full of selfishness, guilt, and a lot of questioning because there is that old identity trying to pull you back.
So of course, the last thing is loss of the old identity. You're grieving the version of you that overworked, over-delivered, overgave, even when she was exhausted, right? And so sometimes we might feel nostalgic to this old version of ourselves. And what I always like to say is let's have compassion for ourselves to say she did the best she could with what she knew at that time. And this discomfort that I'm having now is because I'm choosing new choices and I'm choosing to become more of somebody that I am aligned to that's more empowered, that's more elevated, that's more bringing possibilities and expansion to my life.
So here's the reframe. Guilt is not proof you're wrong. It's proof that you're transforming. And then the final piece is really about how to stay the course, right? When empowerment feels wrong, here is how to stay in course. You want to name it. This feels hard because it's new, not because it's bad. And you actually want to discern what feels hard and what feels bad, right? Because what could feel bad is maybe you have these thoughts that if you're a good daughter, then you X, Y and Z.
And that might have been an old thought pattern that you had or an old belief system that you had, but the person that you're becoming is like, I am a woman who is empowered and there for herself and does things out of love, not obligation. That was one that was really big for me. And that helped me see that even though I had this thought that I'm being a bad daughter, I actually could help reframe myself and see that I'm doing things out of love and not obligation. And this next level identity for me is more of who I want to be.
The next thing you want to do is anchor in. Ask, if I were already the woman I'm becoming, what would I do next? You want to anchor in that future self of who you are going to be five years from now and make that decision from the wisdom that she has. And we can look at her because we already know that it's something that we want because we have this idea in our head, this commitment to be this person. And when you do that, it will help you calm your nervous system down, recalibrate in different ways, but this takes reps.
So the third thing is track the reps. Keep a record of every time you resisted the old pattern. Those are your empowerment reps. That's your proof. So for me, my eating protocol, right? When I am actually doing my protocol, I'm taking care of myself and I'm not allowing my old pattern to be like, let's just wing it, right? I know this is empowerment for me. And when I was dating, the more and more I allowed myself to sit with the discomfort of allowing my husband to do things for me without any strings attached that I need to do anything for me, I realized like this is me allowing myself to break this pattern, right?
And the same for my client Sarah, who was just enjoying her dinner. And by the end of it, no, was she like so relaxed? She was much more relaxed. But guess what? A year from now when she went on vacation, she felt a lot less discomfort than she did the first time she called me on that balcony because she had put in her reps and she had worked on this for herself and she could start feeling empowered. But this is the pathway to empowerment.
So, if empowerment feels wrong right now, if you feel guilty, off balance, selfish, even scared, you're not slipping, you're shedding. And if you want someone to walk you through those mile markers until the new you feels inevitable, that's what I do with women every day. This is what is for you to get a coach, for you to get people on your side, to let them know what you're doing and what help you need.
Let's get you off the hamster wheel of proving and into the life and leadership you've been working so hard to deserve because you didn't come this far just to keep being the most overworked, under-rested, undervalued version of yourself. You came this far to become undeniable. And this uncomfortable path is your way to empowerment. So embrace it. Sit, take reps, anchor in it, name it, have fun with it, celebrate it. And I'll see you on the other side of it. Have a beautiful week ahead. Take good care.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
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