Recalibration Weight: The Emotional and Physical Toll of Reclaiming My Power

The journey to feeling safe in my own personal power

For most of my life, personal power wasn’t just something I lacked—it was something I feared and avoided.

Every time I was caught standing in my power, from childhood through midlife, my mother screamed at me, “GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE!” Another favorite line of hers: “I AM YOUR MOTHER!”

I’d dismount immediately—shamed, fearful, and stripped of my right to feel strong and confident.

She screamed at practically everything, but the emotions related to my personal power triggered the worst of her rage:

• momentum

• motivation

• certainty

• determination

• leadership

• confidence.

All of them were unsafe when I embodied them. I learned quickly that anything tied to my power led to punishment.

Now, at almost 58, I am finally standing in my power again. But what I never expected was the weight that came with it.

Recalibration Weight—the cost of learning to feel safe in power

For decades, I instinctively avoided any self-perception, activity, or emotion that could bring up my feelings of momentum, motivation, certainty, determination, leadership, confidence—because in childhood, those emotions weren’t exciting or empowering. They were dangerous.

My mean narc mother forced an emotional baseline on me—one where personal power meant punishment.

Now, I’m resetting that baseline.

Reclaiming my power didn’t just require taking action—it required relearning how to exist in my personal power without fear of its emotions.

And that process? It wasn’t instant. It wasn’t easy. It was heavy!

That’s why I call it Recalibration Weight—the deep, emotional burden of teaching myself that my power is safe and its mine to have and keep.

This wasn’t just about thinking differently—this was about feeling differently. And I’ve learned that feelings are harder to change than thoughts.

From rebellious joy to safe power

At first, I couldn’t just step into power’s emotions head-on. Everything in me fought against it.

So, I had to start small.

The easiest gateway was what felt like rebellious joy while doing things I love:

• painting

• shopping (I love fashion)

• enjoying something just for myself.

These tiny, “I shouldn’t be doing this” moments became my first taste of stepping outside my mother’s conditioning.

At first, rebellious joy still carried an edge of fear—like I was doing something I’d get in trouble for.

But the more I allowed myself to feel joy safely, the more I realized I could begin to introduce the bigger emotions—momentum, motivation, certainty, determination, leadership, confidence.

This was a slow, intentional practice. And it took time.

I would take the safe, positive feelings from joy and slowly sprinkle them into the bigger emotions that once felt unsafe.

And it worked!

But it came at a cost.

How I saw my healing in my brushstrokes

When I first started watercolor painting, it was during the early phase of my healing.

My brushstrokes were short and jagged, hesitant and sharp—I just assumed that was my painting style.

But now? Now that I feel safe in joy—my brushstrokes are loving and fluid, free and unafraid.

I didn’t force that change. It happened naturally as I became safe in joy—because joy, when it feels safe, is fluid and lovely.

And so are we.

One of my very first watercolor paintings. I took beginner lessons in the fall of 2020.

The fatigue of recalibrating my emotions

Rewriting the emotional baseline my mother forced into me was absolutely exhausting. And, honestly, it was also scary.

For every moment I stretched into safe power, I needed slow, intentional decompression days to rest. This wasn’t laziness—this was what I called Recalibration Fatigue.

Recalibration Fatigue is what happens when the wholeness of my being is learning a new emotional language—when my old conditioning fights to keep me small, but I keep choosing expansion instead.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but maybe this was a version of grief?

Not the grief of looking back, but the grief of recalibration—the weight of carrying, adjusting to, and integrating new ways of being.

The weight before the breakthrough

What I didn’t initially realize was that every time I felt exhausted from reclaiming my power, I wasn’t failing—I was recalibrating!

Recalibration Weight wasn’t a sign that I was broken. It was proof that I was shifting!

The exhaustion? The processing? The need for downtime?

That wasn’t weakness. That was integration!

And then, one day, I allowed myself to realize and accept that I was standing in my power—fully, safely, without the instinct to dismount!

And I wasn’t afraid anymore!

Side note: People who have never had their power stripped from them or their dreams torn away from them cannot relate to what it feels like to be scared to death of their own power. Please do not compare yourself to them; you’re carrying a lot more weight than they are.

Action plan for you—find your invisible joy & recalibrate

If power’s emotions—momentum, motivation, certainty, determination, leadership, confidence—feel unsafe to you, you’re not alone.

But instead of trying to force yourself into power head-on, start small like I did.

Here are some suggestions based on my personal experience of experimenting with joy—joy is a great place to start.

Step 1: Find your invisible joy

Look for the small things that make you feel rebelliously happy.

The things you do that feel a little wrong—but aren’t:

• shopping just for yourself?

• dancing in your kitchen?

• buying a book just because it intrigues you?

If you feel rebellious joy in those moments, my experience shows that it’s a sign joy itself still feels unsafe.

Step 2: Do more of it until it feels safe

Once you recognize your invisible joy, do it often.

The goal isn’t just to enjoy it—it’s to let your wholeness feel safe in joy, even if it makes you cry. I cried through a lot of my early experiences with pure joy. And, yes, I’ve experienced anger and regret that it’s taken me so long to feel pure joy without fear of being caught.

Over time (yes, this takes time), rebellious joy will become safe joy.

Step 3: Expand into power’s emotions

Once joy feels safe, start introducing the bigger emotions:

• let confidence show up in your thoughts, then take it a step further by letting confidence show up in how you dress, how you walk

• let certainty show up in how you think, then in how you speak

• let determination show up in your thoughts and your passions.

Need to rest? Need some downtime? Honor yourself by resting in some neutral, gentle energy. Whatever that looks like for you.

Like my brushstrokes, you’ll start to notice when your emotions move more fluidly—without hesitation.

And when that happens?

That’s Recalibration Weight lifting.

That’s you, standing in your power.

TWOB is my personal power in motion

For most of my life, I lived under the radar. I had to!

I played small.

I stayed unseen.

I hid—not just from the world, but from my own family of origin, mainly my mother and my sibling.

Because standing in my power was dangerous.

But not anymore, bitches!

The Weight of Belief (TWOB) is more than just a website. More than just a blog.

It is my power in motion!

It is proof that I don’t have to shrink to survive. That I don’t have to keep my voice quiet just to stay safe.

I don’t have to live under the radar anymore!

I don’t have to play small anymore!

I don’t have to hide anymore!

I get to take up space. I get to be loud. I get to help others step into their own power—on their terms, in their way, in their time!

And that? That is personal power!!!

TWOB is the culmination of everything my mother tried to steal from me and my sibling tried to reinforce.

And now, I’m giving it back—not just to myself, but to the collective.

A note to those who misunderstand what I do

I know that some people—especially flying monkeys and those who cling to traditional psychological frameworks—might feel compelled to criticize or dismiss the terms I’ve created, like The Hollow Passage, Recalibration Weight, and Recalibration Fatigue.

Let me be very clear: I am not a therapist. I am NOT here to give clinical advice.

What I am here to do is name the very real experiences I’ve lived through—because those experiences did not come with a pre-labeled manual.

So, if you don’t like my self-created terms, you are welcome to move along. No one is forcing you to be here. Your negative emails—deleted.

But if these words help even one person feel seen—help them recognize their own invisible burdens and finally put them down—then that is the only validation I will ever need.