In my article, Revolutionary Leadership: From power-over to power-with, we explore a shifting power paradigm from power-over into power-with. A movement from the power-over structures of the patriarchy empire into a unifying model of exchanging consensual power, which I call power-with. As more conscious leaders find one another, networks of change agents and heart warriors are expanding across the planet. Together, we are birthing a new world. And given the chaotic and destabilizing times, we’re in globally, and perhaps personally, this revolutionary movement is imperative.
In this article, we will review power as a form of energy and unpack the paradigm shift of power-over to power-with in more detail. We’ll also explore:
Two polarities of power: dominance and submission — this will include examining the difference between submission and surrender
How to distinguish abusive power from healthy power dynamics — this will include how these dynamics show up in our daily interpersonal struggles
Three equalizing ingredients that interrupt the dynamics of power-over and embolden power-with. These are self-awareness, consent, and boundary-setting
Power is a form of energy
Power is energy. We power our electrical grids with a variety of energy sources, like petroleum, wind, water, plants and the sun. Similarly, we generate and express personal power through our beliefs, emotions, body language, behaviors, and perceptions of reality.
Personal power is a mysterious energetic force that can be expressed in integrated or un-integrated ways. Our power can felt in the energetic quality of our presence and intentions as we move through life day by day, influencing everyone and everything around us.
When we’re in our power, we set boundaries to support our vitality. We trust ourselves, we’re in touch with our body wisdom, and we make choices in alignment with our personal values. We learn to honor our authentic needs.
We practice saying no when become aware that saying yes would override our ability to be present or true to our values and needs.
We courageously say yes when a knowing in our heart calls us into action, despite our fear of the unknown or the losses we may incur as we honor our yes.
This kind of self-love and self-care grants us access to our erotic life force, which is our vitality and cauldron of power. Being grounded in our erotic nature fuels the creativity and intimacy that feed our hearts and souls.
When we give away our power, through a lack of boundaries or unconsciously placing our power outside ourselves, we feel depleted, resentful, confused or helpless. Giving power away draws upon our primal energy. This is why managing our energy consciously, through the art of boundary-setting, is essential.
“Power is intimately connected to our life force and energy levels.”
Power-over and power-with
Power-over models are based on dominance and they are prominent in various aspects of our culture, such as politics, certain religious institutions, global corporations, or other hierarchical structures that seek to create conformity through shame and fear.
Fear is a way to control and manipulate others and can play out in a myriad of ways. Systems and cultures operating from fear and scarcity will attempt to disrupt or dismantle the inner authority, self-trust, and clear decision-making of the followers. This occurs through messages of shame and self-improvement campaigns suggested to fix our imperfections. All of which is an attempt to convince the masses of what’s needed to embrace and achieve an externalized definition of worthiness. This dynamic creates unconscious compliance, a painful phenomenon playing out in many of our cultural and social practices.
For example, an executive may strive to increase productivity by planting seeds of competition, by pitting team members against one another. The result is that it destroys team morale and establishes fear as a baseline in the system. The whole system becomes a non-consensual maze of “fend for yourself, trip others up, so you can get ahead and maintain status and job security at any cost; it’s every person for themselves.” Unless the shadow of power play is revealed, interrupted, and replaced with a consensual incentive plan, this type of dynamic can become deeply destructive.
“Power-over = non-consensual domination and control.”
Power-with, on the other hand, is vastly different. It’s founded upon a commitment to conscious leadership through self-awareness and personal responsibility. When engaging in power-with, we’re attuned to the way in which our decisions impact the whole. We listen to a larger field of wisdom to guide our choices.
Questions to investigate in our patterns related to power:
Do I know my patterns of reactivity that present through behaviors of fear-based control, compliance, or protection?
Do I track my hidden agendas? And if they’re exposed, do I take ownership of what I’m not revealing? Am I drawing upon covert tactics to avoid being direct about my needs? If so, what’s a stake that makes me withhold? Am I not safe to be real with others? Am I afraid they will overpower me with more authority in some way?
When given feedback about my blind spots, do I listen and humbly discern from the feedback that I can investigate further to grow and embrace my shadows? Or do I justify my actions, deflect, blame external circumstances, or defend?
Do I welcome differences as a means to learn and grow? Or do I interpret them as a threat that I must ‘fix’ as quickly as possible? Either through complying and surrendering my own needs to avoid losing connection? Or through tactics of over-powering others by convincing, judging, or shaming in an attempt to gain agreement in my favor?
What is my relationship to vulnerability? Do I judge myself or others for being emotional? Am I more comfortable being the hero, caretaker, or loyal soldier than the person in need? What happens when I have needs, feel stressed or anxious? Do I embrace it and tend to the root of the issue inside of myself, or do I focus on fixing the external circumstances to feel in control and safe again?
Each time we reclaim our power and take responsibility for the impact that our fears and reactivity have on our well-being, and on those around us, we cut through the impulses to unilaterally dominate through power-over. One by one, we can dismantle inherited beliefs from the archaic power structures of the patriarchy and how the remnants innocently rise from within us when we are stressed or anxious. By deconstructing tactics of power-over, we can birth a world of power-with. The art of love, listening, patience, cultivating magic, and seeing beyond illusions are just a few of the ways that this shifting power paradigm is giving rise to a new world order.
“Each brave and conscious leader becomes a sparked match which glows into a flame. Each one of us becomes the fuel for a revolutionary movement of power-with.”
Two polarities of power: dominance and submission
To understand power, we must study two essential power energies: dominance and submission.
Is dominance always a dangerous use of power? Are submission and surrender both powerless acts? No. Let's explore why.
Traditionally, dominance has been defined as taking power away to retain control. And, submission as giving away power and surrendering control. But in reality, it’s not that simple. Dominance doesn’t always mean power-over, nor does submission mean power-under. The key to distinguishing these differences in the art of consent, which we will explore later.
The complexity of human dynamics is driven through the eye of the beholder’s belief system. Our engagement with power dynamics and interpretations of dominance and submission will be largely defined by our life experiences and cultural conditioning.
For example, I believe that being vulnerable is a form of power. I believe that the level of surrender required to be seen in our broken, vulnerable and messy humanness, without quickly re-assembling our masks and self-images that portray “I have it all together,” is a form of power.
To refrain from hiding behind an identity is a significant surrender, but it’s not giving power away — it’s owning the power of being authentic and true. To another person, what I describe here may not be seen as power but rather as a weakness and a submission of power.
“Power is one of the murkiest terrains we will traverse as we define and embody our boundaries, beliefs, values and personal integrity.”
What’s the difference between submission and surrender?
What’s the difference between submission and surrender? For the sake of this conversation, I’m defining the two terms as this:
SUBMISSION
Submission is a form of yielding to the power or control of another, or circumstances, out of fear and compliance. It includes a felt sense of choicelessness. A lose-lose. Non-consensual submission isn’t wholehearted because it’s survival and fear-based helplessness and compliance.
SURRENDER
To surrender is to take responsibility for how we consciously choose, even in the midst of double-binds. It’s revealed through how we yield to a desire, need, longing or inner knowing against the odds of competing conditions and factors. No matter how difficult and complex the circumstances are, we take responsibility for how we respond. Our decision is not influenced from the pressure of an external source, it’s sourced from within.
THE REALITY OF LOSE-LOSE DOUBLE BINDS
Both submission and surrender can feel like we’re being pinned in a corner by double-binds. Sometimes of our own making or those imposed upon us from other people or systems. In these lose-lose situations we let go of one thing in order to protect and keep another. How we respond is the difference between feeling overpowered into submission or empowered into surrender. Fear will arise in both responses. Our state of mind and the perspective we hold about reality will determine the experience between submission and surrender.
Submission results in feeling powerless. Surrender maintains our power. It’s an inside job that calls upon our personal agency to choose our responses to double-binds, fear, and risks of loss.
One of our biggest initiations as conscious leaders is how we confront and engage with circumstances or conditions that are out of our control. Our power resides in how we respond and hold the complexity and paradoxes within our hearts.
HOW DO SUBMISSION AND SURRENDER FEEL FROM THE INSIDE-OUT?
For me, submission and surrender feel different in my body.
When I submit and say yes (when I actually feel a no), due to external or internal pressures, I give my power away out of confusion or fear. I feel tight in my body. I’m in a state of distress. I may dissociate or freeze or just get busier in order to avoid feeling. Sometimes I notice a growing mistrust in the other person and sometimes towards myself because making a decision from a lose-lose can ignite feelings of shame and helplessness. I submit because I don’t feel or sense another option. I feel powerless.
When I yield into surrender, I feel a relaxation, because I’m saying yes or no based upon my heart and inner alignment. I feel a willingness to meet whatever is to come, even if it’s difficult because the risk is worth the potential costs. For example, I’m in a relationship with a man who I love very much. We both know we won’t be together long term. Each day I surrender into our expansive love and then confront moments when I notice an impulse to protect, withdraw or defend against an eventual heartbreak and loss. I witness and interrupt my impulses. I surrender to what I want more than protection, which is experiencing the profound exchange of love between us. I surrender and give my authority and power over to my decision to stay in a relationship with him because loving, for however long we have together, is worth the risk.
An inspiring example of surrender is modeled by Viktor Frankl’s life in the concentration camps during Hitler’s reign. His essential message is this, no matter how much is taken away from us, and remains unchangeable externally, we are challenged to adjust our attitude towards these circumstances. This is much easier said than done. This is why his ability to keep his heart open in a concentration camp, during horrific acts of human violence, was a superhuman example of power through surrender.
One of his essential messages is about creating space. He says, “Between stimulus and response there is a space.” In that space is our power to choose our response.
Our power, growth and freedom lives in how we respond. This is why suspending our habits to study our behavior will reveal beliefs and unconscious patterns that can open the doors to more empowering choices rather than continuing blindly on autopilot.
The following famous quote highlights how surrender is an inside orientation and torque of personal agency and empowerment.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
When we surrender to the conditions of our lives, that we can’t change in the moment, we become superheroes, mentors and revolutionary leaders. Personally, I think this is one of the most advanced spiritual practices of a lifetime. It is also the pivot point away from helpless submission into empowered surrender.
Revealing our limiting beliefs, and learning about our reactive tendencies and needs to control, increases our ability to make conscious choices. When we expand our ability to make space through self-reflection, mindfulness and suspending habitual ways of thinking and behaving we innovate new possibilities.
Viktor, along with many other pioneering women and men who have been enforced into forms of slavery, have stretched the human mind beyond what was deemed possible. Each one of us can lean on the legacy of these brave ancestors and investigate our own minds. We can sharpen our discipline and interrupt cycling patterns of fear that consume our energy reserves and cause us to act in ways that are hurtful or destructive towards our selves or others. We can learn to transmute challenges into initiatory processes that hold the keys to our freedom through a conscious relationship to our pain and suffering. To learn more about initiations read my article, The Power Reclamation Map.
From the inside-out, we have the power to carve the contours in our psyche to surrender, even when faced with potential uncertainty, pain, loss, and fear. We can build a new neural pathway and belief of internal faith, trust, power, and wisdom.
“Submission through a lose-lose is not consensual. Submission without consent is power-over.”
How to distinguish abusive from healthy power dynamics
In my article, Revolutionary Leadership: From power-over to power-with, I distinguish between abusive patterns of power-over from healthy patterns of power-with. Let’s look at these two more closely.
POWER-OVER: AN ABUSE OF POWER THROUGH DOMINANCE AND SUBMISSION
These two poles of power, domination and submission, have a magnetic pull to one another. Power-over is expressed through non-consensual dominance and submission. It occurs when consent is disregarded and overridden by unilateral decision making and actions.
For example, the #metoo campaign revealed a global epidemic of people in positions of authority abusing their power by forcing their sexual agendas upon those who felt helpless and confused about how to defend themselves. Many of these #metoo cases involved blackmail. Perpetrators leveraged their position of power by threatening to expose fabricated stories that would destroy a person’s reputation, career path, credibility or financial stability if they did not comply. Those double-binds are covert manipulations void of consent.
“Power is one of the murkiest terrains we will traverse in relationship to ourselves, our integrity, and others.”
How do power-over dynamics play out in interpersonal relationships?
When un-integrated shadows and wounds at play it can be slippery and harder to tease out the complexity of power-over dynamics. For example, one partner’s fear of abandonment may drive them to control the behaviors of their partner through guilt trips, demands to comply, or shaming the partner for their disowned vulnerability and fears. How do power-over dynamics occur between business colleagues, friendships and romantic relationships?
The following are two examples of the discrete quality, and seductive charge, that occurs when power-over presents in a romantic dynamic.
I know a couple who were a perfect match to play out the power-over syndrome. Under conditions of stress, he leaned towards dominance and control and she towards submission and self-doubt. This created a world of double-binds and power plays.
She is bravely and consciously working through a core wound of not seeing when she is being manipulated and, due to early learning as a child, she defaults to self-doubt and confusion. When someone blames her for not being what they want her to be she collapses in her power. Instead of seeing the other person’s assertions as differences between their needs, she interprets it as something is wrong with her. As a result, she loses ground and self-trust when she is blamed for asserting her own needs over the needs of another. Here’s where wound resonance comes in. Her partner has a core wound of abandonment and uses covert manipulations as a defense towards feeling vulnerable. When any threat of potential abandonment arises he drew upon controlling her through criticism, blame. He placed his anxiety outside of himself and onto her.
Here is how it played out: when she expressed a desire to spend time with her friends without including him, he felt threatened. In response to his stress he would criticize her for being too self-reliant and not inclusive enough of him in her life. He wanted her to include him in all of her community activities similar to the way he included her in his world. His criticism triggered a trauma response of fog and confusion in her, which subconsciously thrust her into submission and a need to take care of him and abdicate her power by believing she was wrong.
Instead of engaging in a conversation about how to manage the vulnerability of their differences, he blamed her and accused her as wrong, rather than as different. Her different needs became a source of threat to his ability to maintain control and not feel his triggers. Perhaps he could have become more vulnerable and owned his fear of loss and abandonment, instead of hiding behind blame and shame. And perhaps, she could have been more inclusive of him in her community.
We all have trauma and triggers that cause us to dissociate and lose our center. It’s normal, albeit painful. Her submission to his blame created a paralysis of shame in which she lost her anchor of sovereignty. Her inclination to submit came from a fear of being wrong and a loss of trust in her own internal conviction. His vulnerability and authentic expression remained hidden behind his mask of domination based on disowned fears.
This intersection of core wounds, which I called wound resonance, orchestrated the potential for healing, integration, and growth. Without self- awareness, and both people taking responsibility for their contribution to the relationship pattern, these are difficult thresholds to identify, tease apart and cross through with compassion and empathy for differences.
Instead of power-over, here is how a power-with dynamic might have looked for the two of them. Over time, with support, she may have seen how she was innocently forfeiting her needs and boundaries as a means to manage the belief that her needs can’t matter if they risk hurting or disappointing someone she loves. In addition to her ownership, if he had been able to feel his vulnerability and fears of abandonment he may have illuminated his blind spots and observed how his reactivity and controlling behaviors were an attempt to avoid feeling his own pain and vulnerability. Perhaps, with mutual ownership, they could have found a way through the minefield of blame, shame, control, dominance and submission. It’s an art to navigate painful differences, and the triggers associated with them, in relationships. It requires practice, empathy and enough self-awareness to take responsibility for one’s contributions to the interpersonal dynamic or larger system.
Another example is from a couple struggling with another variation of power-over. The woman loved her lover (but didn’t see him as her long-term partner). She wanted to stay with him in an open relationship to maintain the freedom to date other people. He didn’t want this, but in order to stay together, he was willing to try. They were consensual about this choice, albeit through a double-bind for him: “Tell her ‘no’ and lose her” or “Tell her ‘yes’ and maybe she’ll change her mind and chose me after all?” He hoped for a future outcome that held a different reality than the one she was presenting. A young part of him was operating on the belief that “maybe if I prove my love enough, she’ll chose me” This is so common when we’re operating as adults through beliefs of hope and loss learned early in childhood. To learn more, read my article, Embracing our adult relationship patterns: A journey of power reclamation.
The woman explored her desire for others. He did not and remained loyal to her because that was true in his heart. However, when other women were attracted to him, this woman became angry, shamed and blamed him. He got scared and felt guilty, even when he was not doing anything wrong. She gained control again by threatening to leave him, which pulled him back in. She was disowning her jealousy and offloading her pain onto him. These kind of double-standards are nonconsensual power plays. In general, her attachment style with him leaned towards states of avoidance. And it shifted to anxious states when she was losing control of her security and safe haven she found in his total devotion and loyalty to her. The lashing out at him is how attachment threat expressed through her.
In general, attachment states are polarizing energies. We may feel more anxious with some people, and more avoidant with others. These states can shift day-to-day with the same person as our needs and circumstances shift. To read more on attachment theory and how it affects our sense of power, click here.
This example is the power of wound resonance in the realm of attachment. Our wounds will attract the perfect complementary match as a cosmic set up for us to heal and evolve through repetition compulsion. This woman was unable to embrace the power that she had over him. She was blindly operating in a shadow of fear and control. She feigned innocence by not owning her jealousy. This redistributed her anxiety onto him. When his angst and insecurities surfaced, instead of owning her contribution to the power play, she shamed him for his fears or threatened to leave him.
She pretended that he had the same freedom that he granted her, which was not true. She wanted him all to herself, while not wanting to be committed to him. She managed her feelings by blaming him when other women were attracted to him. A double-bind for them both. Jealousy is a natural response when feeling threatened by potential loss. Because she was unable to own her jealousy directly, it came out as aggression towards him, which fed his fears of losing her. This made it difficult for him to see how he was giving his power away.
They were both innocently, and blindly, relating through attachment wounds and defense patterns of control and comply. Manipulation and covert strategies, as a means to protect our vulnerability, are subconscious attempts to get our needs met. This example is a common outcome of being unaware of how we’re using our power and abdicating responsibility because we have blind spots.
If this dynamic had shifted from power-over to power-with it may have looked like this. The woman would have become aware of, owned, and share her vulnerability and feelings of jealousy, instead of blaming and shaming him. By self-revealing instead of defending she would have come out of hiding and created a more level ground for their mutual decisions moving forward. This ownership would have created more equalizing power. Her self-reveal would have humanized her and given him a break from being labeled as the “needy broken one with all the issues.”
Meanwhile, if he had been able to help her see her reactive strategy and not been swayed by her attacks into guilt and shame, he could have potentially interrupted the pattern. Or at a minimum, claimed himself and his sovereignty. And the truth is that they were in a magnificent wound resonance learning process together. We learn as we go and there is no way we can see what we can’t see until it’s time. Each time we muster the courage to name these dynamics in a personally responsible a doorway of infinite potential and healing opens. It takes one person to interrupt and inquire into the pattern. What happens from here is a co-created mystery.
“Our early experiences of power exchange at home and school become the template for how we relate to power as adults.”
2. POWER-WITH: A RECLAMATION OF POWER THROUGH CONSCIOUS LEADERSHIP AND SURRENDER
We’ve looked at power-over through non-consensual dominance and submission. Now we’ll explore power-with through conscious leadership and surrender.
What does it mean to be a conscious leader? What does it mean to surrender? Let’s take a look.
There is nothing powerless about listening to our heart and going against the noise of the mind and pressures of social standards and expectations.
There is nothing powerless about taking a leap towards a deep-felt passion that awakens our aliveness, despite a megaphone of alarm bells and fear that are directed towards us by others or from ourselves.
We are not perfect. We don’t need to be in order to be conscious, free, empowered and self-expressed. To become conscious of our patterns with power is revolutionary leadership.
Every single one of us learned, early in life, to draw upon certain adaptive strategies to assuage the fears of losing security, rejection, feeling helpless, vulnerable, powerless, unsupported, exposed and unworthy. We evolve from life experiences. We expand our capacity to open our minds and hearts each time we self-reflect on how we operate and suspend habits to study our autopilot thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. The more compassion and care we extend towards the messy nature of being human, the greater freedom and choice we initiate. Conscious leaders identify the shadows of operation that create stagnation, generate conflict with others, and accelerate states of stress and overwhelm.
A great place to explore our unconscious patterns of power plays is to study our protective strategies and their associated adaptations. To learn more on this topic, visit my article: Embracing our adult relationship patterns as a journey of power reclamation.
Surrendering into the unknown is a potent expression of power-with
If we decide to leave a job or relationship, without knowing what’s next, we’re leaping into the unknown and releasing stability and security in exchange for following our heart and intuition to explore new potential.
I remember when I first understood, in my body, what it was like to explore power-with through self-trust and heart guidance, rather than logic and reason. It required me to muzzle the yapping internal and external voices of what I should responsibly choose instead of what my heart was guiding me to do. I couldn’t concede to those voices any longer. I left my corporate job in Chicago and moved to Boulder, Colorado for graduate school. Two weeks after the semester began, I dropped out. I knew it wasn’t right for me, but I had no idea what was. I had already rented my home in Chicago for the year, moved all my belonging across the country, and was in a new reality that crumbled as fast as it began. My authentic shift from a yes to a no became a big leap into the unknown and, unbeknownst to me, into self-trust.
I recall the moment when I attempted to coerce myself into remaining enrolled. I said to myself, “You can make this graduate program work, don’t stir the pot, you’ll look indecisive and fickle, it’s not that bad, you can do this.” Ever hear that voice? Ever bargained with yourself to avoid change? Thankfully, I wasn’t lured by the seduction. My body started to ache, I felt nauseous each day before class and my energy was tanking. All messages that something was off. I waded through layers of confusion until I finally surrendered by saying, “No, there is something else I’m in Colorado for. I’m going to let go and listen for what that is.” And, indeed there was…
Instead, I unexpectedly discovered and enrolled in, Authentic Leadership, a certification program at Naropa University. This choice, and the mentors, colleagues and spiritual teachers it led me to, became a significant pivot point in my life path. I painfully confronted the ways in which I had been living from my intellectual mind, and cut off from my body, creativity, power, and intuitive knowing.
“I didn’t need more formal intellectual education, I needed to be schooled by my body wisdom and my heart’s longings. Not my conditioned ideas of who I needed to become in order to be successful.”
As I engaged deeply with meditation, bodywork, and coaching, I discovered that the innocent choice I had unconsciously made, to disembody and live from my thoughts and rational mind, happened as a young child. Later as an adult, I realized that my body was holding layers of unresolved trauma, which rightfully so, made my body sensations feel like a foreign place to land and inhabit.
My power was not in submitting to a social standard or others’ ideas of the path I needed to pursue. Instead, trusting my no and surrendering into the unknown was my power and became my map. I had taken a stance for faith, self-trust, and self-love.
SELF-INQUIRY
What does it feel like in your body when you abdicate your power and say yes out of fear when you really want to say no?
What does it feel like in your body when you surrender control through a quiet and deeper knowing?
Can you recall an instance when you were empowered through surrender?
Summary of distinguishing abusive from healthy power dynamics
I don’t have all the answers, but I do have an unrelenting hunger to make a distinction between the subtle nature of how these polarized energies play out. When we have a vision of what’s possible, we can disrupt old patterns and create new ways of being, individually and together. So much is possible when we become aware of relational dynamics and take personal responsibility for our contribution to what feeds love and fear.
What can we do together to stop the bleeding in our personal lives?
How do we collectively shift the culture of a world dominated by power-over systems?
Let’s look at the final piece here, which are three equalizing ingredients of maintaining conscious leadership and healthy power dynamics.
Three equalizing ingredients in power dynamics: self-awareness, consent, and boundary-setting
There are three equalizing ingredients that serve as discriminating factors to investigate our power patterns. Apprenticing to each one can accelerate the process of integrating our power and creating a world of power-with. They include:
SELF-AWARENESS
CONSENT
BOUNDARY-SETTING
1. SELF-AWARENESS
How does building our self-awareness allow us to participate in consensual conversations?
Each time we witness and embrace the power dynamics we partake in, we heal the fractures caused by misuse or unconscious uses of power. Our ability to self-reflect and track our mental and emotional patterns deeply influences our expression of power. As we track the tactics of how we use power-with and power-over, we build our bank of insight and conscious choice.
We all have trauma and triggers that cause us to dissociate and lose our center. It’s normal, albeit painful. Our early experiences with power became the template for how we relate to power as adults. As children, when our basic needs were missed, criticized, shamed, manipulated or used against us, we drew upon specific adaptive strategies to protect ourselves from further pain, loss, and disappointment.
To feel empowered is to know the shadows through which we give our power away, take power from others or withhold power.
Self-awareness helps us unravel the complex impulses to misuse power unconsciously or out of habit.
“Self-awareness is our inner compass to study our beliefs, behaviors, thoughts, emotions, preferences and triggers, so we can access the greater aspects of who we are.”
Self-inquiry:
How do you attune to the power dynamics you partake in your day-to-day relationships?
In which relationships (or arenas of life) do you tend to take on a dominant role? How aware are you of others’ consent?
Which relationships do you lean toward a submissive role? Do you notice when you give your power away out of fear or conflicted compliance?
2. CONSENT
To consent is to grant permission and agree to do something, or engage in a certain way. Our inner authority is stabilized when we have the freedom to chose our yes and no. And to open-heartedly navigate the impact of differences without reacting unconsciously to the perceived threats differences trigger within us. Power-with dynamics are accelerated when the diversity of needs are traversed together, rather than unilaterally and swiftly extinguished through power-over tactics.
Consent requires open and transparent conversations about differing needs, visions, preferences and levels of investment. Consensual choices are made consciously and willingly, and not enforced against one’s will. Yet, this is impossible if one party is being coerced through lies, manipulation, or through withholding of important information. Without direct conversations, we live in a world of assumptions and moving targets of unspoken expectations, disappointments, blame, guilt trips, and associated breakdowns and conflict.
Consent equalizes the impact of dominance, submission and power-over strategies through conscious choice. When there is shared reality and consensual choice, everyone involved is in their power, regardless of who is in control and who is following. And this is much simpler in theory than in action.
Let’s explore why this is complex. Are habitual behaviors and blind spots of compliance actually consensual? If we’re conditioned to automatically comply with requests from authority figures (or those we love and want to please) without pausing long enough to check inside for our true yes or no, is it truly consensual?
If we say yes to something, but feel resentful later, then we’ve uncovered a give-away of our power. The best way to learn about our power template is by pausing to reflect on what became more important than saying no or renegotiating terms. Maybe we chose to prioritize our need to be liked or perceived as loyal? Or, we sought to avoid conflict or unwanted consequences of disappointing others through conceding? Perhaps, we felt guilty for neglecting responsibilities or prioritizing pleasure over productivity? Maybe we feared manipulation, guilt, shame or blame so complying felt easiest?
Wholehearted consent is hard to find when there are subconscious patterns of control, compliance, defensiveness, and fear at play. The greatest potential for evoking change and embodied power is to expand our self-knowledge by studying the ways that we give, take, and withhold power. To further explore the topic of how we give, take and withhold power, check out my article on revolutionary leadership.
When there is a lack of consent, unequal ground ensues. How can we help each other see more clearly and interrupt our co-creation of power-over dynamics? This is a journey of self-awareness, radical honesty and trial and error. We each have the opportunity to dig deep into our hearts and ask ourselves what kind of environments and interpersonal dynamics allow us to thrive and which do not.
Do we chose to invest our energy with people and systems that honor consent, or do we endure in systems that operate through power-over because we don’t know another alternative, can’t imagine another possibility or have been conditioned to accept this as the only way?
Self-inquiry:
How do you create consent in your life? With your colleagues, children, friends and partner(s)?
What are the ways in which you give your power away in relationship? How do you take power from others?
How do you handle when your needs differ from those around you and it feels threatening in some way? Do you share directly about what’s happening for you or do you respond indirectly through covert tactics or hidden agendas?
If your boss, partner or a friend disparages you to manage their own embarrassment, judgment or anxiety, will you bring this to their attention? If you do, and they respond by blaming you further, or minimize your feelings, will you stay in an abusive power dynamic? Or will you find a conscious way to reclaim your power, even at the risk of conflict or loss? Sometimes it’s not safe to bring these feelings to reactive and controlling people so how will you tend to this personally when inter-personally dialogues are not an option?
“When relationships are absent of consensual conversations, power plays can become imperceptibly manipulative and sneaky, until something erupts.”
3. BOUNDARY-SETTING
Boundaries are a form of power. They empower us to express our needs in relationship, whether that’s in our relationship to ourselves or others.
Boundary-setting is the art of communicating our needs and limits emotionally, physically, energetically, spiritually and psychologically. Establishing clear boundaries is necessary to maintain our sense of connection to ourselves and others.
Boundaries create a forum to take a stand for our needs and preferences, to express our authentic voice and negotiate, and to stand in solidarity with our personal value system.
We give our power away when we don’t set boundaries and subsequently feel resentful or victimized. We also give our power away when we submit to someone else’s agenda who may be manipulating, controlling, or diminishing us by preying on the collective human core wounds of “You’re not good enough” and “You’re too much.”
“To learn about power, we can study our relationship to boundaries and expectations.”
Many conflicts and power struggles emerge because boundaries aren’t spoken. Expectations are often riddled with unspoken assumptions, which become the root of many misunderstandings and unintentional conflict.
Self-inquiry:
How do you recognize your authentic yes and no? What do each feel like in your body?
Do you give yourself permission to change your mind from a no to a yes, or vice versa, as you receive new information?
What is your relationship with disappointing others? This will tell you a lot about how you do or don’t set boundaries.
How we relate to our boundaries and those of others reveals aspects of how we exchange power. For more on boundaries, read my article: Mapping your relationship to boundaries.
The empowerment of self-study
We can shift outdated power-over dynamics when we’re aware of our relationship to power, and the roles we play that contribute to both power-over and power-with exchanges.
The process of conscious power exchanges starts with a personal journey of looking within to study our beliefs, behaviors, boundary-setting (or lack thereof) and defense strategies. Self-knowledge is our primary tool to upgrade outdated and destructive ways of operating towards ourselves, others, and all of life.
Exploring conscious and integrated power requires a personal commitment and devotion to radical and compassionate truth-telling. We thrive when we band together, through the support and solidarity with other brave and committed leaders.
Your stories and questions are welcome here. If you prefer to send a question anonymously, you can do so via the form included on Ask Anne-Marie.