How a Boundary Carries Power
There comes a point in every Deep Cycle journey when rhythm is not enough.
Now comes the hard work: You can release ambition that exhausts you, cut old wires, and breathe in a new cadence — and still the question presses: What will carry me, when performance alone no longer does?
When you begin to notice the wires on the trellis you cling to — you can start loosening them. With every release, your own pulse comes back, bringing relief and a first taste of freedom.
Every cut wire will be tested in real life. Doubts may surface when the old wire is gone — when you can no longer lean on your old ways of performing.
For Hedwig, that question arrived one autumn morning, in the place most familiar to her: the boardroom, where she now sat as founder and CEO, leading the company day to day — the woman who had taken the company public and carried its future in her hands.
The decision
The agenda was heavy. The project had first been proposed by certain board members and developed by outside consultants. Support spread quickly, many eager to push it forward. The politics were thick, and everyone watched Hedwig, knowing that as majority shareholder, her word would set the course.
On the outside, she sat composed, pen in hand. On the inside, her body rebelled.
Her stomach tightened before the meeting even began. Her jaw locked as she scanned the briefing papers. She felt her pulse hammering in her throat, not as fear, but as insistence: This is wrong.
She knew the expectation: add her authority, lend her credibility, keep the momentum. She had done it a hundred times before. That was how you survived, how you climbed. That was how she had taken the company all the way to an IPO.
But as she looked around the table, something in her, long pressed flat, was no longer willing.
In our work
She had brought this dilemma to me the week before.
We looked at outcomes not only in logic, but in resonance — the way the body itself testifies when conviction is near.
What happens in your body if you comply?
Her breath shortened, her shoulders folded.
What happens if you say no?
Her eyes widened. Fear, yes. But her chest lifted. Her whole frame seemed to remember space.
We spread it out like a constellation exercise — mapping each player into the field to see their dynamics, with obvious desires and hidden agendas alike. This is part of my work as Trusted Advisor: reading the deeper field, seeing the invisible architecture behind choices. I sense where loyalties are tangled and where pressures are concealed. One by one we placed them on the map until the political landscape was visible.
For Hedwig, the map was clear. Compliance drained her. Resistance, though frightening, pointed to the road she needed to take.
The sovereign No
Back in the boardroom, the moment came.
All eyes turned to her — the founder whose voice would decide.
She felt the old wires scream:
Her mother’s law: Don’t upset them. Keep the peace.
Her father’s warning: Never outshine, never dominate.
The corporate mantra: Performance is everything. Stay in line.
And yet beneath the noise was a deeper rhythm, steady and alive.
She spoke with an even, steady voice — not apologetic, simply clear: „I cannot support this.“
Silence fell. Some faces stiffened. One person exhaled, almost relieved.
She braced for backlash — anger, resistance, counter‑moves and critique. But direct attack did not come.
What followed instead was the harder part: she had to present her own version of the project, secure buy-in and agreement, and, not least, make the case convincingly.
Because we had explored the entire scenario in depth, she knew the hidden agendas and was prepared for the counterarguments she already anticipated. One by one she met them, countered them effectively, and steered the decision in her direction.
When the discussion finally closed and the board moved with her, she noticed her own body: back upright, breathing calm, the migraine that had shadowed her all morning gone.
This is what sovereignty feels like. Not triumph. Not rebellion. Her refusal had drawn a line in the room — not a wall, but a clear edge of what she would and would not carry. The quiet strength of a boundary that carries power — not a wall to shut others out, but the edge that defines where you stand.
What Female Power is
For years, Hedwig’s power had come from performance and via her family’s social standing — the traditional kind of power tied to status and external results. It was the language of corporate life: endless hours poured into work, every gesture rehearsed, value measured in compliance with the codes. A power that rarely considered people or values, even when marketed as such. At its core it was always ‚power over‘ rather than power with or from within. That kind of power drains, devouring body and spirit alike.
What rose in her that day was different. It did not demand recognition or approval. It did not leave her hollow. It steadied her. It nourished her.
This is Female Power.
The kind of power I wrote about in my brand-new E-Book — Unapologetic Power — because one article could never hold it. Female Power is not borrowed or performed. It is remembered. It flows when the inner architecture aligns, when conviction rises from the body instead of collapsing into fear.
Aftermath
That No did not end the story.
Later that evening, Hedwig sat in her car in the dark parking garage, hands on the wheel, heart still racing. She replayed the silence of the room, the faces unreadable. Even with her version approved, a flicker of doubt rose — she knew she had crossed some powerful people. What would be the repercussions, the hidden cost to her? Had she risked too much, shifted the ground too far?
Yet when she drove home, she noticed something new. For the first time in years, she did not rehearse her words, did not berate herself for being too sharp or too soft. She felt strangely clean inside. She had not compromised.
The next morning, she looked in the mirror, half expecting regret. Instead, she saw her own eyes steady, unflinching.
This is the cost and the gift of sovereignty: you cannot hide from yourself anymore.
In her following session with me, we deep dived into these worries. We looked at the protagonists again — I read the energies of the field once more — and together we developed a strategy for how she could counter possible repercussions.
The trellis runs deep
And one big No certainly does not dismantle the trellis. A boundary protects the new space opened when wires are cut — it holds the ground, but it is the cutting itself that will eventually dismantle the trellis.
The wires are not only corporate codes or family rules. They run through a long line of female ancestry, through generations of women told they had no value, no voice, no rights, no claim to anything. Survival meant binding themselves to the trellis and remaining there — a lesson passed from mother to daughter, appearing as compliant trees, carrying the right fruit, staying silent and small, because that was the only way to endure. Some wires come through family rules, others are inherited laws older than memory. The entire female lineage is wired to never outshine men, to submit and be quiet — and often it is the women themselves who ensure this code is obeyed.
Getting off the trellis is a long road requiring patience and endurance. Women who have walked with me for over ten years still find new wires to cut. This is not failure. It is the nature of a system woven through centuries.
To grow beyond it requires more than simple clarity. It requires the courage to return, again and again, to the wires that still hold, and to cut it with your own hands.
Not lost — covered
Someone implied recently that I work with women who are ‚lost.‘ None of the women I work with are ‚lost.‘
Hedwig was not lost. She had founded a company, taken it public, navigated politics, survived storms. That is not the work of someone lost.
What women discover are the layers— coverings of expectation, code, and inherited voices. Their essence was always there but lying deeply buried underneath the version they were shaped into on the trellis.
You have to commit to get off the trellis because once you become conscious of each individual wire, you can’t ignore them. Covering up becomes intolerable.
The work is to cut them, one by one, and peel back the layers of expectation and code until your true feminine essence can breathe again. To free what has always been whole, waiting beneath.
Practice: Training a boundary
Sovereignty grows in practice. One choice at a time:
• Say no to a demand that drains you.
• Mark an evening for rest, even when the calendar insists otherwise.
• Speak one truth without polishing it for applause.Each act feels risky. Each tests the wires. But with practice, the body learns: this boundary does not isolate you — it carries you.
The Deep Cycle
The journey of Hedwig is part of the Deep Cycle — my one-year program for women ready to step beyond performance and redesign the inner architecture of their lives. In this work, female power becomes tangible: leadership that nourishes instead of draining, and a way of living that feels lighter, freer, more joyful, with identity and presence restored.
Now Hedwig is deeply motivated to do the work because she sees results emerging. Each time she cuts a wire, honours a boundary, her leadership shifts — from optics to essence, from performance to conviction.
Perhaps you recognize yourself in her story. If you do, remember you are already powerful and whole — you are just waiting to uncover what has been hidden. The orchard is full of women waking up to their long buried true feminine power. Not heavier. Not harder. But clearer. Steadier. Freer.
Practice for this week:
Train one boundary to carry power.
Choose where you will stand — not against others, but for yourself.
About the Author
Renate Hechenberger works with women in high-stakes roles — from board seats to executive leadership to founder journeys. And with those whose influence takes other forms: in the arts, academia, or public life. Wherever the stakes are high, presence and integrity are non-negotiable.
👉If this resonates, you are welcome to download my new The E-Book Unapologetic Power and explore more with me in a private Power Talk.
© 2025 Renate Hechenberger. All rights reserved.
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