Are You Terrified of Your Power? The War Against Virtue and Desire
Breaking Free From Childhood Programming, Religious Shame, and the Inherited Fear of Your Power
“For I am I: ergo, the truth of myself; my own sphinx, conflict, chaos, vortex—asymmetric to all rhythms, oblique to all paths. I am the prism between black and white: mine own unison in duality.”
― Austin Osman Spare
Roots of Suppression
It took me a long time to confidently own my power. My childhood was shaped by shame-based, indoctrinated, and flawed individuals who were terrified of their own power and guilt-laden desires. The subconscious threat of punishment restricted every felt-sense of true freedom.
Over time, my sensitive soul was torn into many different parts, each struggling to be the whole rather than just a piece. Like a self-destructive parasite, these selves fought for control, twisting my life into forms that only the most broken people could recognize.
As I grew older, I reached out through the haze of addiction, where my true self found comfort in the goddess's healing—a realm so comforting I dreamed of never leaving the beds we shared. Palaces of ecstasy set apart from the chaos.
At the time, I was unaware of the Lady in Black, the guiding presence of my life. As desire grew, tuned by the virtue of a growing heart, I was able to trust the muse as she led me into the dark forest.
“I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning.”
― Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies
For too many of us, any real sense of freedom is haunted by an ominous feeling of doom. The simple desire to grow into our own strength feels like a dastardly deed, one that comes with a guaranteed penalty. This deep internal conflict is usually the result of a suppressive program installed in our minds long ago, a program that forces us into a "false humility" where we attack in others the very thing we're scared to unleash in ourselves.
What follows is an exploration of that fear—where it comes from, how it lives in us, and how we can begin to reclaim the authentic power that is our birthright.
The Mask and the Glare
"Follow your bliss." —Joseph Campbell
When you're terrified of your own light, you get damn good at hiding it. It becomes a survival skill. But that suppressed energy has to go somewhere. So, it gets projected outward as judgment. We look at people radiating genuine confidence and, instead of confronting our own envy, we find reasons to tear them down. We tell ourselves they’re arrogant, they’re egotistical, they’re faking it.
Tragically, we became possessed by the giants who criticized our light.
Projection becomes an automated defense mechanism. Seeing someone else's empowerment is like looking in a mirror that shows us what we lost. That reflection hits a tripwire, activating the old, shame-based programming from childhood. And suddenly, our minds are flooded with accusations—” they're in their ego”—and our eyes take on that patronizing ‘compassion glare.’
You often see this in spiritual circles. People who are so certain of their own righteousness will offer to pray for you, all while assuming your confidence is a character flaw. It’s a form of religious narcissism, really. They aren't trying to save you. They are desperately trying to fix their own reflection by labeling you the "proud sinner" they’re terrified of becoming.
Programming of Powerlessness
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ... Love is the law, love under will."
—Aleister CrowleyFollow your soul’s orbit … all things permitted harm none.
—(Zzenn’s version)
This systemic virus of shame isn't an accident. It's designed to keep people small, and it gets installed through two main channels: broad cultural indoctrination and the intimate dynamics of your childhood. For centuries, authority structures have thrived by making us feel guilty for our own inner wisdom. We had doctrines literally beaten into our souls:
You are born in sin.
Pride cometh before a fall.
All are sinners and unworthy.
Submit to the Lord your God.
Saved from what? From yourself? The audacity of it is stunning. This framework wasn't about divinity; it was about obedience.
This cultural shame then infects our own families. Many of us were scolded for simple acts of self-will. Maybe you took apart a toy just to see how it worked—an act of pure curiosity—only to be shamed by a parent worn down by their own trauma:
"How dare you break that expensive toy?"
"After all I do for you?"
"He only thinks of himself."
”She’s showing signs of rebellion.”
That last one? A death-blow to a child’s soul. In that moment, your imaginative power is twisted into a crime. You are sentenced to a lifetime of trying to prove you're "not guilty" for simply having a will of your own. You learn that to be safe, to be loved, you must become the "obedient child."
It is only when we risk losing our souls and defy the voice of shame that we find what Crysta discovered, giving her the courage to rise above the canopy of the trees:
"We have too long forgotten the magic powers of nature. The time has come to call on them again. Remember: all the magic of creation exists within a single tiny seed."
—Ferngully
Inherited Fear: My Story
This isn't just theory for me. It runs in my blood. I inherited a lineage of trauma—what scientists call transgenerational epigenetics, the notion that our ancestors' trauma can leave a mark on our very genes. My parents were both survivors of severe child abuse, and they passed their unhealed wounds directly on to me.
My father was a broken man, crippled by the abuse he suffered in his childhood. Any hint of happiness in me was a threat to him. He'd drag me away from my friends and make me do endless chores (like painting the whole house instead of playing with friends all summer) as punishment, replaying the slavery he'd endured at the hands of his own grandfather, who had beaten him with a whip. And when he drank whiskey, his darkest demons would emerge.
He ultimately shed his tough exterior, revealing a caring and compassionate side. However, his entire life was spent masking a deep-seated pain - a shame he only confessed on his deathbed. It turned out that his uncle had been sexually abusing him for years. That kind of trauma doesn't simply fade away; it profoundly affected his sense of self.
“All children are born to grow, to develop, to live, to love, and to articulate their needs and feelings for their self-protection.”
― Alice Miller
My mother’s prison, on the other hand, was her faith. When I was four, she had a terrifyingly vivid dream—a dark figure at the foot of her bed, crawling towards her. Frozen in sleep paralysis, she saw an image of Jesus appear and save her. She took it literally. To her, this wasn't a Jungian archetype of rescue from her own past trauma; it was a divine command. The experience turned her into a fundamentalist, and she spent the rest of her life wielding God's judgment like a weapon.
This is the kind of environment that turns sensitive children into psychics. We become hyper-aware of people around us because we have to break through egos, reveal the falsehoods, and read between the lines to survive.
Returning, Emerging
Unraveling all this took me most of my life, well into my 40s. It meant confronting that phantom of "God's judgment" and gradually learning to trust my own instincts. As I did the work, the trauma started to release, and a powerful life force—Kundalini, the Serpent Power—awakened from its chamber.
Now, that kind of energy is intoxicating. It’s an ordeal. If you don't ground it, it can spin out into messianic delusions or a hunger for control. That’s why the only real key to owning your power is through the heart. Power has to be balanced with love and compassion. I’m not talking about the pretentious empathy of the self-righteous. I mean the real stuff that grows out of doing your own inner work, of facing your own demons.
Authentic power, balanced with self-love, rooted in unsullied desire, tempured by virute, equals authentic presence.
It’s that simple, and that difficult. Just know that the path is lined with dead souls who chose social approval over raw honesty. Frankly, I’d rather share a drink with an honest person, even a broken one, than spend five minutes with someone full of toxic positivity.
Maybe that's why I love the sound of an old, worn-out guitar played with raw emotion on a creaky, paint-chipped porch in a swamp. That's what's real. And it’s in that kind of authenticity, not in the performance of humility, that we find our way back to freedom.
—Zzenn
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