Learn To Deploy And Relate To Power Consciously To Break Old Patterns That Poison Us And Others

We are born ignorant tyrants.

As newborns we are powerless, but don’t yet know it. We cry and trust that we’ll be taken care of, even if we are colicky and projectile vomit all over the place. We aren’t born innately knowing about power dynamics, which will color every interaction we have for the rest of our lives.

Eventually, we learn that power is a two-way street.

We absorb lesson after lesson unconsciously for years, so that patterns become automatic and embedded in our marrow. We witness or experience millions of interactions, and learn what works and what doesn’t work and what are the stated and the unstated rules in a family, an organization, or society.

We learn by accident.

We are not explicitly taught how to read, analyze, deploy and manage power. As the saying goes, if you don’t know who the patsy is at the poker table, you’re it. We can go through our entire lives not knowing who the patsy is and inadvertently giving away our power.

Being in right relation with power is critical to happiness. Like money, power itself is value-neutral. It’s just energy. But how we relate to it is caused by years of conditioning that have created unconscious assumptions or patterns. 

We can give away our power without realizing it. We can also exert power in ways that are harmful to ourselves or our loved ones without realizing it. When we learn to deploy our own power with confidence and ease, everyone in our ecosystem benefits.

“Superman Card Game by Whitman (1978) — Superman” by andertoons is licensed under CC BY 2.0