134 | How to Actually Step Into Your Power
““True power isn’t having control — true power is exercising choice, especially when everything inside you feels uncertain.”
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We often confuse power with control — being right, getting our way, influencing outcomes. But control isn’t power. It’s conditional, and it drains us.
In this episode, I explore a different definition: True power is the conscious exercise of choice. We talk about how trying to control people, outcomes, and timing actually gives our power away — and how choosing our perception, response, and energy brings it back.
This is especially relevant for anyone navigating growth or psychedelic integration. Insight alone doesn’t create change. Practicing choice does.
Topics Covered:
The difference between control and conscious choice
Why control burns energy
How to shift from reaction to response
Why space and pace are essential for integration
How coaching helps you reclaim authorship of your energy
LISTEN
Things Mentioned in This Episode
Show Links:
$500 OFF during March: Psychedelically Informed Coaching (6 Month Program)
Focused Transformation Coaching (6 Week Program)
Iboga Integration & Prep Coaching (NEW-now enrolling)
About Lana Pribic:
Lana Pribic, M.Sc., is an ICF Professional Coach, co-founder of Kanna Wellness, and producer & host of the Modern Psychedelics Podcast. With over 230 hours of professional training and four coaching certifications, Lana specializes in psychedelically-informed coaching, guiding individuals through profound inner transformation. Based in Ontario, she merges the power of psychedelics, consciousness, and self-discovery to facilitate deeply impactful experiences. When she's not immersed in her work, you'll likely find her dancing to electronic beats, creating art in the kitchen, practicing patience with her cat, curating her dream wardrobe, or diving into a book.
Looking for a professional coach to support you on your psychedelic path?
Look no further! Along with being the host of the Modern Psychedelics Podcast, Lana is a 3x certified professional coach who works with people on the psychedelic path.
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Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I am coming at you from my home office back in Canada after, yeah, about three months in Mexico City, and I'm looking forward to getting back into it, sitting down and recording a hopefully useful piece of content for you today. So let's talk about power. Power, power, power.
Very interesting topic in these times, and I hope that this conversation today offers you a reframe on what power actually is and is not. So, look, we're all in one way or another in the process of taking back our power, stepping into our power. We want to feel empowered and grounded, sovereign. [00:01:00] In our lives, like we have things under control.
We wanna feel powerful, not weak. But there's this misunderstanding about power that I wanna address today and that I think will be incredibly useful for you. And I also wanna talk about what it is and how it actually shows up in our lives. So we often think of power. Almost as like this force type of thing.
Uh, we think about it as being right, controlling others, having control, having influence, getting what we want, winning. These are all things that can make us feel like we're powerful or in power, but that's not actually what true power is. What that actually is is control. True power is not about having control because control is actually quite an illusion.
True power is [00:02:00] about exercising choice. When we try to control everything such as outcomes and people and timing and perception of others, we are actually. Giving our power away. And that's because in that process of control, we are draining our energy, trying to force reality to match our preferences. But when we choose how we perceive a situation, how we relate to it, and how we respond, what we're doing is we're actually taking our power back.
We start to direct our energy in a way that moves actually in our favor. So exercising choice is what gives us power. Exercising choice gives us freedom, and it gives us peace. And that's what I wanna talk about today. And when I say exercising choice, I mean that this has to be done in a very intentional and [00:03:00] conscious way because for most of us, the default is to try to control, to exert all of our energy into controlling, and we call it power.
But choosing to choose often doesn't come naturally for most of us. Most of the time we're experiencing life as something that is just happening to us. We assume that there's nothing that we can do or we collapse into reaction, into blame, into force, into self attack, and then all of those things make us feel like we kind of have to like armor up and control in order to move forward.
But there is always one thing that is available to us, and that is choice, not control over the external, not control over others, choice over the internal landscape and the internal environment. And it is my belief that, you know. The only thing we truly have control over, like full control over is our inner world.
And so that's kind of my thing, my thesis, my work as a coach [00:04:00] is that if we're in the business of healing, personal growth, transformation, going after the lives that we want, our resources, our time, our energy. It is best spent on tending to that inner landscape because that is what we truly can always no matter what, no matter who we are, no matter where we are, no matter what our life circumstances are, our inner landscape, our reactions, our perceptions, the way that we look at things, the way that we choose to see things, the way that we process our emotions, our thoughts, those are the only things that we can truly, truly control.
And so I wanna reframe how we are thinking about power. so let's take a moment here to define what true power is. Power when we think about it, right? Power. If you just close your eyes right now and try to come up with a concept, an image, an idea of what power is. You know, power is simply the way in which [00:05:00] energy is used.
Whether we're talking about physics, human behavior, or navigating our inner landscape, energy is always moving through your thoughts, your emotions, your actions. So the question is not whether you're using it or whether you're exerting power. The question is how consciously you are using your power and energy, and how consciously you are directing it, and what is the quality of that power?
This all matters because control disguised as power is a very different quality than true power, which is what I'm talking about today. True power is not about how much energy or force you use, it's about that quality. And so true power can only really exist when you bring the light of awareness and [00:06:00] consciousness to how you are using your energy, especially during those moments when things feel uncomfortable.
And there's fear, and your first reaction is to control things, and that's how you step into your power, right? Wrong, true power means. Choosing, crafting, refining your perception instead of relying on default interpretations. Choosing also means choosing a response rather than a reaction. It means choosing acceptance, seeing through the lens of acceptance Instead of resistance, it means choosing authenticity instead of performance.
As I said earlier, the only domain you truly have influence over is your inner world. It's not outcomes. It's not other people. It's not timing. It's [00:07:00] certainly not world events, but your perception, which determines your emotional response, which guides your next moves, which guides your results, which creates a feedback loop into your perception.
This is big stuff, and it may seem. Abstract. But when we look at it in terms of energy and control and force, it actually makes a lot of sense and we can see how perception and consciousness determines our actions and results in life. So, true power, I wanna bring this forth. True power requires. Three things here.
Awareness, acceptance, and conscious choice. And they all build on each other because without awareness, you're on autopilot. Without awareness, you can't even see yourself. And you know, for my listeners here who are, who are tuning in today, I have no doubt that you have the [00:08:00] awareness. You have the.
Understanding of who you are, how you show up some of your blind spots. Most of us are able to get to this step with very little outside interference. Uh. The next step, acceptance is where a lot of people get stuck because without acceptance, an acceptance is simply accepting reality as it is seeing things through the lens of truth rather than through the lens of the story in your mind, which is often usually crafted through wounding and past experiences.
Having acceptance requires us to be present to the present moment and to be aware of what is currently true, not what was, uh, without acceptance, without bringing. Energy into cultivating acceptance. We leak our energy through resistance, and it can be incredibly [00:09:00] draining. When we have the awareness and we have the acceptance, we can finally move into conscious choice.
Without choice, you fall to default tendencies. You're actually living through the past, not through the present. And convenience and control are prioritized over choosing. To move forward in a way that is authentic to what is actually happening in your life at this time. So control tries to force reality, whereas choice works with reality and control is this kind of like, it's this energy that feels constricting and tightening.
It can feel like it's. It's tearing things down, right? Whereas choice is an energetic state that feels expansive and steady and peaceful even. [00:10:00] And control also burns energy where choice directs and cultivates energy. But why does control drain us so much? Right? When we try to control everything, we're constantly scanning for what's wrong, which by the way, is a very Mm,
In most cases. Definitely in this world of. Personal growth and development. Um, we're scanning for what's wrong, which is very much a perception and a personal preference most of the time, which causes us to grip, to brace, to micromanage, to control. And in doing so, we're actually giving our power away to circumstances, to people if they change, if the circumstances change.
We collapse if someone disagrees with us or doesn't give us what we want, we feel threatened, and if things don't go our way, we spiral. That's [00:11:00] conditional power. It's power based on outcomes, which. Is not dependable, it's not steady, and it's not concrete. It relies on external circumstances. True power is unconditional because it's rooted in choice.
It's an internal job. It's conditional only upon you choosing to exercise it in that way. So even when life is uncertain, even when you're triggered, even when you're moving through a difficult chapter or you don't have. Clarity, there's always an opportunity to be at choice. How do I wanna see this? Who do I wanna be in this moment?
How do I wanna show up? What energy do I wanna invite in? How willing am I to see where I am not seeing things clearly right now? That's what real power sounds like, right? It's less [00:12:00] force, it's less tense, it's more open, it's more realistic, and it's an energy that certainly feels a lot lighter and creates the conditions for us to feel at peace with life.
And so I wanna shift this conversation just a little bit towards the psychedelic integration process, which, you know, I'm, I'm guessing that everyone listening. In right now is working through, in some point, this conversation around power is so relevant for those of us who are working with psychedelics.
Uh. We are often called to this work because we want to release what no longer serves us. We want to step into our power, and it's such an amazing moment when I'm working with clients and we start having this conversation about like power. What is in your power? What would it mean to be in your power?
What would it mean to step into your power? I love seeing the light bulb go off for my clients, and I'm hoping that that's [00:13:00] happening for you right now as you're listening to this, because psychedelics, while they're incredibly. Skilled at showing us that we do have power and they do show us that we have choice, we have authority, we, you know who we are authentically, they can show us the truth and like where we're not seeing things properly, they can give us this felt sense of freedom and alignment that we've never experienced before.
And that's what's so beautiful about psychedelics. But there's a part of this that often gets missed because psychedelics don't necessarily teach us how to live in that power day to day. We have to do that for ourselves, and that's the work that happens after ceremony and psychedelics reveal what's possible, but they don't automatically show us how to sustain it.
In ordinary everyday life, in relationships at [00:14:00] work, in moments of uncertainty and moments where things feel tender and destabilizing and like everything's collapsing. That's why post medicine integration can often feel confusing because it's like you've touched something real. You've seen the light, but you're not.
Sure how it fits into your life and how to anchor it into life. So it's an ideal opportunity to practice what we're talking about here, true power, rooted in choice and consciousness. Consciousness. I say that word and what I really mean there is the perception, the lens that you are seeing life through, right?
Psychedelics are incredible. Perspective shifters, perspective enhancers, uh, but true power after medicine work. It's not loud or dramatic, it's more subtle, relational, day-to-day, practiced. And [00:15:00] internal. It can show up in how you speak to yourself when old patterns reser resurface in, how you relate to your triggers and your wounds, how you respond when you want clarity, but you don't have it yet and you're just sitting in that super uncomfortable uncertainty.
I feel that so much right now. You know, for anyone that's listening, I, I relate. It's hard and uncomfortable to not know what's coming in life. It can also show up in how you use your energy when no one's watching and nothing is being rewarded. You have just as much choice when you're all alone, as you do when you're in a group of people.
And so after the psychedelics, many people will unknowingly slip into control. Uh, that might look like trying to hold onto the experience, trying to make sense of everything, immediately. Trying to fit it into your current narrative [00:16:00] rather than allowing it to unfold naturally and build and expand. Uh, trying to force yourself into the version of yourself that you glimpsed, but you're not quite.
There yet, uh, trying to make everyone get on your page. Everyone should do psychedelics, right? True power is nurtured, not from gripping that insight, but from learning how to walk with it. To weave it into your life in your own way and your own pace, and this is where choice comes in.
True power thrives in space and pace, so. I really wanna encourage anyone listening to really slow things down. Space creates room for conscious response and real choice to emerge, whereas pace respects nervous system and honors [00:17:00] organic timing. If we want to truly own our perception and own our consciousness and exercise power through that lens, if we want to show up in choice instead of default.
Space and pace aren't optional. They're required control, on the other hand, thrives in force and rigidity and speed it, it rushes to fix and finish. It tightens expectations and it sharpens edges, and it tries to lock insight into certainty before it's ready. So, as I'm talking about this, I, I want to encourage you to reflect on where you are at in that process and where there may be some control, um, and how you might be able to shift from control to choice.
People often get stuck without support, and most people lose access to their true power, not because they're [00:18:00] incapable of being powerful. But because they're alone with their patterns.
And they're alone with their processing unconscious habits, uh, inner narratives, reactive loops. These are things that are quietly running the show and over time they feed a subtle but persistent drive to control, to seek power through certainty fixing, being right or brute force. And honestly, even if you're deep in the work, these patterns can be incredibly difficult to spot, let alone shift in real time, so you can have the insight.
You can be self-aware, you can sit in powerful ceremonies and have expansive experiences and still miss the moment where you slip from choice into control, from acceptance into resistance, from power into control. This doesn't mean failure. And it doesn't mean that. Choice is not [00:19:00] possible. It's deeply human and it's why coaches need coaches and therapists need therapists.
We're often stuck inside of our own boxes and we can't see our blind spots clearly while we're inside of them. And this is where support actually matters. And when I say support, I don't mean advice. If you're stepping into your power, you definitely don't need someone telling you what to do that's gonna serve no one.
Support is more effective when it comes in the form of a mirror. Having someone who's able to reflect. Back to you, how you're relating to yourself, how your energy's moving, where it's leaking, where you're tightening without realizing it, what expectations you have without even knowing that their expectations.
And so. Uh, where you're abandoning yourself in the name of progress, and so good coaching at its core isn't about catering to a better, happier, more optimized version of you. It's about helping you notice who you're being so that you can [00:20:00] choose differently, consciously, in real time. In real life and with life, and that's where true power starts to become sustainable.
So if you're listening to this and you're realizing that what you want is not more control, more insight, uh, or another breakthrough, but. A different relationship to your consciousness, your perception, and the amount of choice that you're exercising. I have a few ways to support you, so listen up. So this March, I am running a promo on my signature six month coaching program, which in and of itself is a bit of a psychedelic journey, a slow burn, psychedelic journey.
Uh, all of March start dates will receive $500 off of my coaching program. If you've been curious, if you've been wanting to reach out, if you've been tuning in for months or years, now is the time. Because I don't offer this often, [00:21:00] only once or twice a year. So anyone who wishes to start coaching with me in March will receive $500 off of my signature core program.
You can go to modern psychedelics.net/apply to submit an application and book a curious conversation, a discovery call, if you will. Uh, not a sales call, just a call for us too. Say hi, hear what you're going through, and determine whether my methodology and my program will be of use to you. In addition, this is new.
I have decided to offer a more accessible route for my coaching for those who are not ready to commit to six months. 'cause I understand fully that it's quite an investment. I am now offering custom coaching programs in the range of one to four months, and so this is more for the person [00:22:00] who wants support, but maybe is restricted with time, energy, or budget.
If this interests you, please fill out the custom coaching package. Application in the show notes, that's all gonna be down below. Whether you're listening on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube, you can find that down below the custom coaching package application. And so this is for people who are looking for a more accessible way to get this level of support.
So of course, I also have my Ebo GA prep and integration program. If you're moving through. Work with Iboga this year. It's called Doing the Work with Iboga, and that is also gonna be linked in the show notes. So I'll leave you with that for today. Until we speak next time, just trust what's stirring inside of you right now and if you would like to work together, please reach out and I can't wait to hear from you.
Have a beautiful [00:23:00] day.
