“I am here to help people get their power back. I don’t want people’s power.”
Whether you know it or not, you have immense creative and personal power. But in a society that often tries to take that power away—or tells you that you should give your power to a “guru”—it’s easy to feel invisible in your own life.
In this video, I explore why creativity is actually the fastest path back to yourself. While traditional tools in psychology and psychotherapy are valuable for understanding our past, messy and joyful creativity focuses on your aliveness in the present. This channel is a sanctuary for those who want to reclaim their agency without the pressure of productivity or performance.
My Promise to You:
• 🤦🏻♂️ I’ll never tell you that you are “broken” or need to be “optimized”.
• 🤷🏻♂️ I won’t ask you to give your power to a “guru” or follow a rigid system.
• 😁 I will never prioritize a “crush it” mentality over your need for a safe haven.
What we’re exploring in this episode:
• The Power Illusion: Why “power-over” is usually an illusion and how to tap into “power-with” instead.
• The Political is Personal: Navigating a world where authoritarianism and “guru culture” try to claim your agency.
• Creativity as Self-Relationship: Why playing with colors or words is a radical act of reclaiming your own decisions.
• Reclaiming Your Aliveness: How to use your creative power to make a difference in your community.
Sound good? If this resonates, subscribe to join our rebellion against the “shoulds.”
And if you want a safe space to explore this way of being with others, the door to our next free Creativity Circle is open. (Don’t forget to confirm your subscription!)
Want more tips? Check out this playlist with all my previous Creative Pep Talks!
Get in Touch
I’d love to hear your feedback, questions, and experience with these ideas! Send me a note at fycuriosity.com, or contact me on Instagram, or Bluesky.
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Transcript: Own Your Power
Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Whether you know it or not, you have immense creative and personal power. You, you, this person who is watching or listening to this right now. This often comes as a surprise to people because frankly, a lot of the time in our society, people spend a lot of time trying to take that power away, or they tell you that you don’t have it, or they tell you that you can’t use it, or they tell you that you should give your power to them. That one’s really popular.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:53]:
And so we tend to lose touch with the power that we have. Part of the reason that I love doing the work that I do is because when you’re doing your creative work, you are in charge. When you’re playing with crayons, colored pencils, paints, watercolors, photography, music, writing, whatever it is you’re doing, there’s nobody else to tell you what to do. All the decisions are yours. And so this is why I say that creativity is the fastest path back to yourself. There’s nobody else telling you that you have to do it their way, that you have to do it according to a different plan, that your way is wrong other than the voices in your head, which are usually not yours. So once you learn to turn tune those out, there’s nobody else but you. And when you learn to listen to you, you learn to tap into your power and into your true self, which in itself is incredibly powerful.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:59]:
And why am I talking about power? First of all, I want you to know that you have it. Second, power is really important here in 2026. Because everywhere we look, there are people trying to use it, abuse it, take it, all sorts of things. And this is where, again, I wanna say, I don’t wanna turn this into a political podcast, but increasingly it is impossible to be human in 2026 and not have politics enter into your world because the personal is political. There’s no denying that right now. We have a situation where serious wellness practitioners like Deepak Chopra are turning up in the Epstein files thousands of times. The stories are coming out. They are ugly.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:48]:
And they are all about taking people’s power away, usually in order to make money off of them. And I wanna come out here right now and say that I’m here to help people get their power back. I don’t want people’s power. And that may sound hollow and that may sound easy to say, but I’ve been in situations where my power has been taken from me and I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel good. And it doesn’t feel good to me to be potentially in a situation to take someone’s power away from me. Those situations have taught me a very, very strong and firm sense of ethics. And so when I see stories like Deepak Chopra in the Epstein files and I read the specific stories about what’s happened and he’s not the only one, he’s just the easy one to talk about, it turns my stomach.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:40]:
And that’s why I hosted a Substack Live on Sunday talking about guru culture power and the questions that we need to ask because I think we need to ask a lot of them right now. And, of course, this is not just a wellness and personal development thing. And I’m talking about this because whether I like it or not, I am tangential at least to those fields, is everywhere. It’s in our politics. It’s all over the place. It’s in our schools. It’s everywhere. I used to be a teacher.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:08]:
There’s power issues all over the place in schools. See, there’s power over and there’s power with. I would much rather have power with. Power with is a lot more fun. It’s easier for everybody, and and you can achieve a whole lot more in power with people. Shared power is real power. Power over is usually an illusion. So I want to emulate Lisa Rankin, the former OB GYN who has been sharing a lot of these stories and bringing this topic to the fore in light of the Deepak Chopra news, and say, just to be clear, I hope that this has been implicit in everything that I have ever said, but I also recognize that it might not be and that that’s not good enough.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:58]:
I am not in favor of authoritarianism. As I’ve said before, the ICE activity in Minnesota is completely abhorrent to me. I am not a fan at all of our current administration and the things that they have been doing to almost everybody. I think they’re dangerously authoritarian, to put it in possibly the the easiest way possible. And I leave you to take from that what what you will and what you must. So again, I’m I’m not gonna turn this into politics central because that’s not why I’m here. But I also think we can’t leave these things unsaid on. We can’t leave these things unsaid.
Nancy Norbeck [00:05:53]:
It’s not good for us and it’s not good for the society and the culture and the people who’ve been harmed. So if you are interested in the subjects that I got into on Sunday about guru culture, power, the questions that we need to ask, I hope that you will check that that recording. There are links wherever you are finding this podcast. I also mentioned that I am totally open to the idea of starting a discussion group or a book group. There are a couple of books that I mentioned, and you’ll find those on that post as well if folks are interested. So if you are, feel free to send me an email, leave a comment on that post. Let me know because that’s how I will gauge whether or not I go forward with that. And just remember, you have a lot of power.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:36]:
You have power right now in this political situation. There are so many things that you can do, especially if you volunteer locally because all change starts locally. And you have so much creative power. You have power in your own life. You have power over your own creative efforts. You have power to make change. And I hope that you will use that power to make the world a better place because I think that’s why we are all here. We can all make such a huge difference.
Nancy Norbeck [00:07:03]:
So choose choose your power and choose the way you want to use it, and go help make that change in your community and in the world. If you’re tired of thinking about answering a creative call, but never actually doing it, come join me for an hour and start feeling like yourself again. The Follow Your Curiosity Creativity Circle is a safe, welcoming, and encouraging environment where we send the shoulds and inner critics off to summer camp where they’re kept busy rather than getting in our way. You can find it at the link in your podcast app. See you there, and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends.
Nancy Norbeck [00:07:59]:
It really helps me reach new listeners.