Thoughts
About Power Over, Power Under, and Power With
By
Kelly
Tobey
Power Over can be seen as an
attempt to control or dominate someone or some situation. It can be
allied with projected anger or rage. It is a pseudo power, in that it is
an attempt to compensate for the underlying sense of powerlessness.
Power Over is typically a
fear-based reaction to thinking that something outside of us has taken,
or is considering taking, our power (our choice) away.
Power Under is an attempt to
manipulate favors or pity by pretending to be a victim. Pretending that
we have no power, so it needs to come from elsewhere. “I am so small,
you need to come look after me”. It too, is a pseudo power, in that it
is an attempt to compensate for the underlying sense of powerlessness.
Power Under can also be an
attempted disguise for some forms of passive-aggressive behavior. For
instance someone can effect a situation by showing up late. This is a
powerful act but is often unclaimed. Instead of being accountable for
the action of being late, the person can claim to be a victim of this or
that situation, which supposedly caused them to be late, and was
supposedly out of their hands.
Power Over is based in thinking
that we can have more power than we have in reality.
Power Under is based in thinking
that we have less power than we have in reality.
They are both based in a
disconnection from recognizing our personal connection to true power.
We
will typically choose a power style from the options our parent’s role
modeled. They will typically play out the polarization between Power
Over and Power Under. As a child we will decide which looks safer or
more effective in any given situation and then adopt that style. The
underlying growth opportunity we have is that instead of mimicking our
parents, we can move towards the balance point between the two poles and
respond from Power With, the true place of power.
Power With comes from a knowing
that we always have access to the power of LifeForce energy. We live in
a free will zone where we get to choose how we respond to any given
situation.
Whenever we feel victimized, we
have a power issue.
Whenever we feel we have
victimized someone else, we have a power issue.
Having a power issue just means
we do not trust true power, which is harmonizing, not destructive.
Our core power issue is actually
with the Divine. When we forget our own choosing to be here, we can feel
like we are victims of the Divines actions, and have been abandoned
here. This can set us up to engage in rebellion with the Divine. We can
engage in fighting with our own intuitive connections to the Divine,
which cuts us off from receiving the guidance and power that is
available, which in turn, can lead us to feeling even more abandon and
rebellious. To attempt to compensate for the disconnection we gravitate
towards the pseudo power styles.
Claiming the true power that is
available to us may bring up our fears. Living from a place of true
power brings about success. We may have fears about the possible results
of success such as the following. Fear that some people will not like
us, or may be jealous of us if we are successful. Fear that we might
misuse power. The more power we access the bigger the potential of
misuse. Fear that more success means we will be taking on more
responsibility, mixed with a perception that responsibility is a burden.
Fear that we would be more visible and open to attack by others. Fear
that we might not have appropriate boundaries for people who might come
at us with their neediness and burdens and an agenda that we look after
them.
To relieve the fears we can ask
for intuitive guidance to show us how to most effectively direct the
power we access so that it serves the highest good of our self and every
person and thing that is effected by our choices.
When we choose the journey of
reclaiming the power that is inherently available to us, we may have to
readdress the deep hurts created when we initially experienced the sense
of giving our power away, or of feeling like it was taken from us. If we
do go in and face the old hurts, that in itself is an act of reclaiming
power, because instead of avoiding hurts we have engaged the courage to
face them. That gives us the power of choice back.
A sign of our maturity is
reflected in our willingness to take on the responsibility for our
choices and the ramifications of those choices. We will become more
aware of how we can effect the direction of our lives with our power of
choice engaged. We get to own the part we play in the co-creation of the
big picture.
May we each become great
ambassadors for true power!