Don’t Forget Your Fire: Reclaiming the Strengths You Already Have

Julie Barris | Crisis Counselor | Therapist-in-Training
Sep 10
3 min read

Updated: Oct 3

Reclaiming the strengths you've forgotten isn't about becoming someone new—it's about remembering who you've always been beneath the noise of self-doubt and survival mode. In therapy and in life, reclaiming the strengths that once carried you can be the first step toward feeling grounded, empowered, and truly self-led.

Don’t Forget Your Fire: Reclaiming the Strengths You Already Have

Somewhere along the way—between the anxiety, the burnout, the breakup, or the breakdown—it’s easy to forget that you were once someone who could handle hard things. You had resilience, creativity, and grit. You had humor. You had moments of clarity and courage, even if they were quiet or brief. But when life wears you down, those parts of you can start to feel far away… like they belonged to someone else.

Therapy often starts with support. A safe space. A place to cry, vent, or sit in silence. But if it ends there, we’re missing the point. The real heart of therapy is this: to remind you that your strength never left—you just stopped hearing it over the noise.

Why We Forget Our Strengths

When we’re in crisis, our brains go into survival mode. That’s not a weakness; it’s biology. The mind narrows its focus to the problem right in front of you, and suddenly everything else—your past achievements, your resilience, your resourcefulness—fades into the background. You don’t feel strong because you’re in protection mode.

But over time, if we keep outsourcing our sense of safety to others—waiting for the next encouraging text, the next therapy session, the next external fix—we risk reinforcing a dangerous idea: that we’re not okay unless someone else says we are.

For Trauma Survivors: Strength Looks Different, and That’s Okay

For trauma survivors, reclaiming strengths can feel especially complex. When you've spent years in survival mode, your strength may have looked like staying quiet, staying small, or staying alert—things that once kept you safe but now feel like limitations. Healing doesn’t mean erasing those responses; it means honoring them as evidence of your resilience while learning new ways to feel strong, safe, and whole. Reclaiming the strengths that trauma may have buried is not about returning to who you were before—it’s about becoming someone even more rooted, intentional, and free.

Click to Learn About When the Past Parents the Present: How Trauma Flashbacks Shape the Way We Raise Our Children

For Those Grieving: Strength Doesn’t Mean “Moving On”

Grief can make even the simplest tasks feel like mountains, and in the weight of that pain, it’s easy to feel like your strength has disappeared. But strength in grief doesn’t look like pretending you’re okay—it looks like showing up in the mess, honoring your loss, and letting yourself feel without judgment. Reclaiming your strengths during grief might mean rediscovering small acts of resilience: getting out of bed, reaching out to a friend, or simply breathing through a hard moment. It’s not about forgetting the person or thing you lost—it’s about slowly remembering that you’re still here, and your strength can hold both sorrow and hope.

Therapy Is Not Forever… And That’s a Good Thing

Good therapy doesn’t just soothe; it empowers. It’s not about becoming dependent on a professional to hold you together—it’s about learning how to hold yourself, especially when no one else is around. Yes, support matters. But so does solitude. Because real growth happens in those quiet moments when you realize: I can get through this without falling apart.

Reclaiming your strength doesn’t mean pretending everything’s fine. It means noticing how many times you’ve made it through even when things weren’t.

A Simple Practice to Reconnect with Your Strength

Next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, try this:

Pause.
Think of one difficult situation you’ve survived.
Ask yourself: What part of me got me through that?

Was it your persistence? Your humor? Your ability to ask for help? That part is still in you. It didn’t leave. It might just need an invitation to speak again.