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Respectfully Wield Personal Power
By: Jonathan Goodman-Herrick, CSW
"Self-reverence, self knowledge, self control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power."
Lord Tennyson, Oenone
To meet the remarkable challenge of being in a couple relationship, it is essential to respectfully wield a significant amount of personal power. Personal power is the strength and self-validation to freely and fully assert, when it is appropriate, our own needs and feelings. It is the capacity to take authority, to lead and to influence, to give voice to ourselves, to speak or act on our own truth. Personal power means honoring the forces of nature, the creativity, talent, sexuality, intuition, and natural authority that channel through us.
The door to the great room of personal power is the body. Power may originate in the cosmos, but it is our capacity to channel it through our body, through different energy centers or chakras, that charges us with the voltage we need to meet the needs of relationship.
The place in the body to start is the gut or belly. The Japanese call this the hara. Zen meditators, martial artists and professional athletes center here. It fuels their daunting effort. Channeling energy from this point, tiny female Akido masters are known to outfight muscular men more than twice their size and weight.
An exercise for locating this body center is to stand, feet firmly on the ground, and follow the path of one’s breathe down to a point two inches below and behind the navel. Then take several deep breaths into this spot. Feel your gut and the power that emanates from there. More than just a power source, the gut is also a compass. Far from the flickering, pale thoughts, the "shoulds" and "should-nots" of the mind, the gut boldly tells us what we really want and really don’t want. Even if we do not always act out what we want or feel, knowing what these wants and feelings are allows us to keep our channels open and our power flowing. We may desire our neighbor’s spouse, or be enraged with our boss; but if we are unaware of these feelings, then we suppress the desire or rage and simultaneously suppress our energy. Conversely, if we tune into our gut and know what we are feeling, we may choose not to act on our feelings, but we keep the energy flowing.
The heart, the sexual area and the area beneath our sexual parts where the legs join, known as the root chakra, are also strong body centers. Tuning into these areas also allows us to locate and maintain the flow of power. Ultimately, keying into every part of the body, noticing where we might be tight and shut down, allows us to release trapped energy and recover power.
Generally, when we feel powerless it is because we are shut down, but also because we are walking around with a conscious or unconscious image of being young and small. Even anger and blame are symptoms of feeling small, victimized and, way deep down, afraid. They reflect a child fighting back.
Along with the body centers, personal power can be accessed through imaging the archetypes of power. A major one is the Warrior. A common misconception is that the warrior archetype is angry, violent, looking for a fight. Rather, it is an impersonal, fearless, all-powerful male or female figure that wishes no harm, but is implacable as protection: a master samurai, John Wayne, Superman, Wonder Woman, an Amazon.
The true Warrior, without hurt or anger, simply protects. Indifferent to fighting or not fighting, she simply does her job. A technique for actually accessing Warrior energy, the aspect of our self that is pure strength and fearlessness, is to allow an image of a warrior to arise within the mind’s eye. It could be a well-known image, like Wonder Woman, or something unique to you; whatever comes up. See the image as fully as you can. Get a sense of its power. Experience that specific sort of energy in your own body. Part of the fabric of our nature, this warrior archetype simply needs to be located and summoned.
Another power archetype is the Sorceress/Sorcerer, like King Arthur’s Merlin or Castanada’s Don Juan, figures with the magical powers to protect against and overcome others. The same technique described above can be used to summon this particular energy from within us. If we are open to it, we can often find our own inner sorcerer or sorceress.
When we incorporate personal power in our relationship, our needy or vulnerable, fearful child parts feel safe. They don’t lead us to be untrue to ourselves simply to please our partner. If a partner presumes too much, tries to push us in ways that are untrue for us, we can tell them so, authoritatively, without anger or aggression. Like Superman, our power stands gently in front of our fragile child and our partner respectfully backs away. Paradoxically, the safety of being well-protected by our own power allows our vulnerable and playful child parts to come out and reveal themselves. More than anything, this creates the basis for intimacy and joyful play in relationship.
Wield Personal Power
Stand up and place your palm against your belly, just below your navel.
Take a deep breath and feel the breath travel all the way down to the pit of your belly.
Ask yourself, without fear, what your gut has to say.
You do not have to act on it, but let your gut tell you what desire, need, fear or other feeling you have there.
Now feel the energy or power that comes along with acknowledging the deep need, fear or other feeling.
Jonathan Goodman-Herrick's book THE HEART OF RELATIONSHIP: FIVE ULTIMATE TRUTHS further describes many of his views on couples and their needs.
Click Here to learn more about Jonathan Goodman-Herrick, CSW
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