If you didn’t have a spirit, either you’d be dead or dying,
or, a walk-in would occur and you’d be elsewhere,
or a sufficiently advanced parasite would walk-in, in which case it’s unlikely you’d be posting on magik forums, I feel.
Empty vessels don’t stay empty - nature abhors a vacuum.
You absolutely have a spirit, and it’s yours.
Magik can take years to develop and carries a lot of nuance. You need to develop your senses and connection to [insert preferred name for source/tao/higher self etc here] to have the energy to put towards magik. It’s not a case of just saying words - your intro post is not at all clear what cultivation you’ve been doing if any.
I suggest you meditate more to develop your inner strength.
It could also be that a) the woman was simply mistaken and doesn’t understand how things work, and/or b) you are naturally able to hide - and she wasn’t experienced enough to tell.