I keep noticing something in my work, in my friendships, even in myself: so many people are starving for permission.

Permission to rest. To stop performing all the time. To tell the truth.

Permission to become stranger, more tender, more sweet. Permission to become more fully themselves.

So many of us learned that belonging required us to perform. We perform competence, pleasantness, productivity… We learned to shape-shift and contort ourselves to survive systems that could not fully hold us. And after a while, it’s hard to remember who we really are underneath all that adaptation.

The conversations I’ve had this season have each, in their own way, done what singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles calls “widening the road.” My guests’ stories make room on the road for different ways of being powerful.

So today, I want to revisit some of those conversations, not just to reflect on what these guests learned about power, but to help you see yourself in their stories too.

Because maybe what you need most right now isn’t more advice. Maybe you need a little more permission.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The common thread of truth about power that all of my guests have discovered
• Why stepping into our real power requires us to name and claim our unique powers
• How power calls us to pause and truly witness and honor others and our environments in ways only we can

Learn more about Valerie Black:

• The Change Agency
• Becoming Power Newsletter
• Coaching

Resources:

• Ep 2.06 Walking Each Other Home: Power, Elderhood, and Belonging with Shirley Showalter
• Ep 2.07 Seen, Known, and Valued: Sarabeth Bickerton on Naming Your Uniqueness
• Ep 2.08 Arriving in Your Power with Brooke Edwards
• "Sweet Darkness," David Whyte

Do you know what it would feel like to arrive in your power?

We talk about power like it's a destination but I don't think that that's true. I mean, I have had clear, undeniable moments that I can point to and say, yes, that was me. I was lightning. But much more often, it's so much subtler than that.

It's a reaching. A getting a little closer than last time. It's the moment after, when I'm not sure if I lived up to my own high standards and someone who loves me says, “Did you see what you just did?” And because they know me really well, I can go, “Okay, yeah, that was pretty rad.”

Brooke Edwards has spent 30 years guiding people through some of the most remote wildernesses on earth, keeping people alive in places that do not forgive mistakes. This year she walked into a completely different kind of challenge that required all of her accumulated skill and presence.

I want you to listen for the moment when she stops wondering if she's the right person and she knows, I am the medicine. This is one of the clearest examples I've ever witnessed of someone arriving fully in their power.

This is a conversation about nervous systems, about trauma, about whimsy as rebellion, and about what it means to return to a place that once hurt you, and not just survive it, but bring healing back with you.

It's also a conversation about what happens after you arrive in your power.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Brooke learned to truly rest and heal her nervous system after years of 24/7 situational vigilance as a wilderness guide
• Why putting on her “five-year-old helmet” and adding whimsy into her day are essential practices in Brooke’s ability to be a change-maker
• How Brooke’s system unexpectedly rebelled after her experience of stepping into her power
• Why we need guides and mirrors in our communities
• The moment Brooke fully owned that she could be a uniquely powerful servant and ally to her community
• Why the return from the summit and pausing to integrate what we’ve learned are essential parts of the journey

Learn more about Brooke Edwards:

• Wild World Wanderings
• Facebook: @brooke.edwards.1253
• Instagram: @wildworldwanderings
• Connect on LinkedIn
• Substack: @shinybrookie

Learn more about Valerie Black:

• The Change Agency
• Becoming Power Newsletter
• Coaching

Resources:

• Buried, Ken Wylie

It was two and a half years ago, but I can still taste it—that mix of confusion, grief, fear, and exasperation from the job hunt after a layoff.

I kept hearing the same things:

“You’re overqualified.”
“You don’t quite fit this role.”
“Your resume doesn’t really make sense.”

Externally, I wanted to push back. But internally, I ingested a more dangerous thought: Maybe I don’t make sense.

After months of searching, I wasn’t just frustrated. I was starting to question whether I had ever even had the value I thought I did.

And I don’t think this is just my story.

We are living in a deeply strange moment in the world of work. And understatement, I know.

We have more ways than ever to describe ourselves, and somehow, we’re becoming harder to see. The systems we’re operating in were never designed to hold the full complexity of a human being. So they flatten us. They reward what can be easily categorized. And they pass over what can’t fit neatly into boxes. Over time, that oversimplification shapes who gets seen, who gets valued, and who gets to access power.

Today’s guest has been working on this exact problem for years. Dr. Sarabeth Berk Bickerton is a professional identity researcher and the leading expert on what she calls hybrid professionals—people whose careers don’t fit neatly into a single box.

In this conversation, we explore a radical and deeply hopeful idea: That your power doesn’t come from fitting into the system. It comes from naming yourself. We talk about professional identity, belonging, the hidden cost of trying to “fit,” and what it means to be seen, known, and valued in a world that keeps trying to simplify you.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How her personal pain point with feeling stuck in a box evolved into over a decade of research and a unique way of solving the problem
• Why naming our unique professional identity is essential for owning your power and standing out against AI
• Why we need to get clear on the language for the intersection of our skills, abilities, talents
• The three levels of belonging and how they impact how we feel seen and valued at work
• Understanding the three core identities and how they help us name who we are and how we can excel at work
• Why it’s essential to have a real, embodied connection with the words you choose to describe your professional identity

Learn more about Dr. Sarabeth Berk Bickerton:

• More Than My Title
• Connect on LinkedIn
• Instagram: @morethanmytitle
• Substack: @sarabethberkbickerton

Learn more about Valerie Black:

• The Change Agency
• Becoming Power Newsletter
• Coaching

Resources:

• More Than My Title: The Power of Hybrid Professionals in a Workforce of Experts and Generalists
• Seen, Known, Valued: How to Achieve Career Belonging in a Workforce Obsessed with Fit