She Just Knew

The little girl sat three feet from the glass box, enthralled by the colorful show, which featured a beautiful woman with the power of magic.

With a blink of her eyes or a twitch of her nose, the show’s namesake could conjure up anything: a lavish dinner spread from thin air, a sudden tropical vacation, a perfect home, a sparkling outfit, a whole new reality — effortlessly summoned with style and grace.

And then he would come in. The one whom the namesake loved, and she would dim her light at his demand. She would apologize for who she was if it made him love her more.

And the little girl watching the show would suddenly wish the parts where he entered the scene were over. Let’s get back to the fun — the magic.

Didn’t she like the romance? Didn’t she want the namesake to be in love?

Of course. But something in her instinctively knew this wasn’t love. The hiding. The anger. The criticisms. The demands that the namesake hide in a bottle — or behind the label of normal.

But there was audience laughter in those parts. Canned, hollow, persistent. And this laughter was supposed to make light of the namesake being bullied. This laughter was saying: Don’t take his insults, short temper, and insecure need to put her down too seriously.

But something in the little girl still knew better.

These shows were Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie — and that little girl was me.

In Bewitched, here was a strong, kind, beautiful woman with the power to whip up an extraordinary life, and she settled. Settled for verbal abuse, constant judgment, the demand to dumb herself down, and her husband’s thinly veiled disgust with who she was born as.

It wasn’t comedy. It was conditioning.

It taught us to normalize degradation. To soften the blow of watching someone extraordinary shrink so another person could feel big. To disguise insecurity as love, and self-erasure as loyalty.

And we were all supposed to giggle along.

These shows trained generations to believe that power, especially in women, should be hidden, tolerated, or apologized for. That love means enduring disrespect. That being “good” means choking on your own greatness for someone else’s comfort.

But this isn’t about men putting down women. This is about standards. About what we allow. About the silent agreements we make to be small, to be liked, to be chosen.

And even though I couldn’t explain it back then, I felt it. Something was off. Something in me — quiet but unmistakable — knew. I didn’t have the language yet. I didn’t have the standards yet. But I had the signal.

The discomfort I felt back then, the unease I couldn’t name — none of it was immaturity. It wasn’t me “missing the joke.” It was Me. The part of me that refused to laugh along. The part that saw it, even when I didn’t know what I was seeing. The part that whispered, “This isn’t right. This isn’t it.”

And yet, I spent the next four decades shrinking anyway.

I settled in marriage, in jobs, and even in my expectations of reality. I believed in magic, but only the kind that stayed polite. I believed in God, but only the version that approved of playing small.

And when I followed every guru’s teachings, every method, every so-called Secret guarantee — and the results didn’t come — I didn’t rage. I didn’t question the system. I just assumed I had done it wrong, and I kept my disappointment quiet.

Because I thought that was love. That was humility. That was “how you grow.”

Turns out, it was just another laugh track. And I was still being told to smile and nod while my power got dimmed.

Enter the Dragons

In 2012, quite by accident, I found myself channeling the dragon consciousness called Iram. It wasn’t something I was seeking, but the moment it happened, my life took a sharp turn. Suddenly, I was seen, celebrated, and in demand.

People traveled to hear the dragons speak through me. They felt the power, the fire, the clarity. And for a while, I thought that was the magic I had always been waiting for.

But even the dragons weren’t fooled.

One day, in the middle of a session, they said it plainly: “You do know you’re not channeling us, right? You’re just using us as a permission slip to access your own brilliant wisdom.”

That one sentence cracked something wide open.

Because the truth was — they were right. I was still doing it. Still playing the role. Still dumbing down my own voice, but this time behind cosmic theatrics and spiritual performance.

It was Bewitched all over again. Only now, I was the one casting the spell against myself. I had built a magical reality, yes, but I still made sure it was palatable. I still made sure no one was too threatened by the full force of who I was.

But that sentence — that moment — rewrote me.

Over the next ten years, I stopped outsourcing my clarity. I stopped borrowing voices to validate my own. And slowly, fiercely, I began to stand by Me.

I may not channel dragons anymore. But the energy? It’s still here. Not as a spectacle. Not as a show. But as standards. As fire that no longer needs to be explained. As power that doesn’t ask for a laugh track — or permission.

Because the lesson I first glimpsed in a sitcom, the one the dragons echoed back to me, and the one I live by now is this:

You don’t dim real magic. You don’t contain what was never meant to be small. And you never, ever apologize for being exactly who you are.

And now I live by the standards that little girl didn’t have the words for — but felt in her bones. The standards that say if I have to shrink to stay, it’s not worth staying. The standards that don’t ask how loud the room is laughing, only whether I can hear myself.

Because here’s what I know for sure: that little girl who sat three feet from the glass box wasn’t confused. She wasn’t naive. She didn’t miss the point of the show. She was the point.

She was the one who saw through the script. The one who caught the subtle betrayal. The one who wanted the magic, not the compromise.

And today, I don’t just stand by her — I am her. Grown. Unapologetic. Uncompromised. She knew B.S. when she saw it.

And now, so do I.

#bebold

Kristen