Exploring Your Personal
        Relationship to Power

Note: If you were not at the Gatherings at which we focused on Power and would like a chance to look inside yourself before being influenced by the notes, click here for interesting questions to contemplate. After answering the questions for yourself, return to this page to explore further.

Also:  I plan on adding a forum to allow each of you to add your comments to these pages.  Until I have that completed, please email me your comments and I will add them myself.  Thank you for your patience as I pull this site together :-)

Sections:  Power in General, My Relationship with Power, Power in My Relationships.

Power in General:

Asking ourselves "what is my mind's experience of power", we each created a list and then shared it with the group. This is a combined list with notes and comments:

Next we spent time going within our bodies and asking what to their "felt sense" of power is and we wrote down notes for ourselves.

We talked a bit about yin and yang power.  Yang is something like: the masculine active principle in nature that in Chinese cosmology is exhibited in light, heat, or dryness and that combines with yin to produce all that comes to be; masculine, provider, engineering, taking.  Yin is something like: the feminine passive principle in nature that in Chinese cosmology is exhibited in darkness, cold, or wetness and that combines with yang to produce all that comes to be; receptive, fertile, nurturing, creative.  We talked about yang power and yin power.  We also agreed that all the "negative" aspects of power listed above belong neither to just yang or to just yin power.  A balanced, healthy relationship with power includes both yin and yang power.  Being receptive and inclusive is powerful.

Ideals, values, goals. We talked some about how we make choices about what powers we want to cultivate in our lives and agreed that moving toward some aspects of power require moving away from others. (Example was given that moving toward "political power" would move you away from the power of "privacy".)  By accepting something you are always giving up something else. There has to be a balance--finding your power is finding your own balance within the direction you choose to move.   Ideally we make our choices about the directions we want to move toward based upon what we value, what has meaning for us, and what our goals are. Be aware of the values that you have, the ideals and things that guide your life:  aligning your life with pure love, being in integrity with your word, no assumptions, etc.  How do you want your values, ideals, and goals to be integrated with and influence your power?  I know I have a different kind of power when I am aligned with my ideals.  I can feel the difference. 

Janitor/CEO. We considered this thought experiment:  Is a janitor or homeless person as powerful as the leader of a company or a nation?  Explore your belief systems around this. Comments from the group included: 

• The CEO seems to be more visible and controls and affects more things than the janitor could. The janitor definitely could do good things or bad things, but his scope of influence would be limited to a given area as opposed to someone that has a larger scope of influence. There may be places in a janitor's life where he has the same power to influence people. If you look at the janitor and CEO relative to a different domain they may currently be in (e.g. at a ball game), they may have equal powers -- but within the company I don't think they do.
• By giving titles we make assumptions about how much power a person has and how much power we have based on our title. If you're thinking about a person as a CEO, that goes along with how much influence they have. But if you are out on the street or helping other people outside of work in a different domain then they have a different ability to influence.
• What about a morning when the CEO comes in early and is getting coffee while struggling with some major decisions that will be made that day.  The CEO is in a bad, negative place and is pretty certain what decisions he will be making and they don't bode well.  The janitor walks into the kitchen area, senses the energy of the CEO and in some way influences and shifts, even a little bit, this CEO's state of mind and energy so that the decisions that will affect people through the whole company are made in a vitally different way; all because of his interaction with the janitor. It is a subtle power that maybe the janitor intended to have or didn't. But if I was a janitor that's how I'd be living my life. I may not know if I'm influencing someone or not, but I'm going to choose to live as if I am. I know I may not see the results of my influence, yet I trust that they exist (based on the fact that I have seen enough results of my actions that I have a fundamental belief that I do influence those around me for the good of all). I don't artificially constrain the extent of the area in which I have influence. If I have authentic interactions with everyone around me, I could be making a huge difference to the entire universe, or to my family, or to the company, etc.
• What if the janitor is the only one in the company choosing to be happy?
• The janitor may have a presence about him that causes him to be a natural leader and he may have much more influence with other employees. People might choose to follow the janitor! The CEO could be very ineffective at leading and unifying people.  A natural and personal power inside someone (which they have a choice/control over--they may not have the control/choice to become a CEO, but they can choose to be a person of power.)  People can choose to walk-out on an ineffective CEO, but they will willingly follow a charisma janitor.
• An individual contributor on a team has a lot of power in how she affects things in meetings and how she responds to her boss and coworkers, the tone she sets in the meeting, the compassion she shows to herself and those around her, etc.
• You have choice and control over those things.
• There is a difference between power and authority.
• I am being deliberately provocative by choosing yin words and putting them in a yang environment when I am asking these questions.  I am wanting you to really look at your belief systems.
• Power is given to you and you may never even know it. Or the world doesn't know it because in using your power you chose NOT to expose someone or something or gossip, etc.
• My intention at my job, is to be there with love, compassion, integrity, etc. It started with me managing a small group. As I was promoted, I had the ability to affect more people. Yet even people who were not reporting to me, that I passed in the hallway, or sat next to in meetings, or saw in the kitchen, were influenced and affected by me -- in all those moments I was still trying to bring in that energy of pure love, etc. The more I play at the different levels of positional power, the more I realize I have power wherever I am.
• In the classroom you can affect strangers by how you respond to the teacher, listen and respond to other students, pay attention, show up, etc.You are bringing an energy to the space around you.
• Why do we limit our circles of influence so much? Because we are told 'you get to be in control of this specific area only' and we believe that.  That is the only reason.
• You have power even when you are alone.  How you choose to be with yourself and what you chose to give your energy to during those times is very influential.
• Who do you influence? Family and friends. Also strangers.  Expand your ideas about the domains you exist in and the kind of power you have in each of those domains.
• You can't always see the results of your actions/being and that makes it easier to believe you don't have power.  But you do .. think about it. 
• Right now in this group we are influencing each other, we are exuding power, and we are supporting each other's powerful expressions. The thoughts that we are releasing by voicing are influencing other's in this group.  We are creating a powerful community!

Limitations. We next considered how our power includes our limitations. How do you include your limitations into your relationship with power? If you feel you are not very good at some things, how do you include those limitations in your power? Limitations of your positional power (title)? Which of your belief systems are limitations to your power? Are you powerful WITH your limitations? Or are you telling yourself you cannot be powerful until you no longer have any limitations?  Someone in the group shared:  "The sense that I have is that my relationship with power comes from being really grounded and present with who I am, inside, in the moment, which includes my limitations.  My self-awareness allows me to be grounded in the truth of myself and then my energy field is grounded and becomes more powerful. And being grounded includes self-acceptance. Who I am a right now is okay. I'm content with myself." You don't have to judge your limitations or exclude them from your power.  In fact, when you abandon any part of yourself, including your limitations, you've lost power. Deliberately excluding parts of yourself, even your shadow parts and your "negative" parts causes you to be out of your power.  Include them in a balanced way and they become part of your power.

We spent a few moments inside our bodies inviting in the sensation of living our lives from the center of our power. If I was living my life from the center of my power place: How would it feel, taste, smell, look, sound? How would my energy shift? How would my mind think of things differently? What would my heart experience and yearn for? My soul?

Sections:  Power in General, My Relationship with Power, Power in My Relationships.

My Relationship with Power

We considered the questions: How am I powerful? How do I feel about my power? What domains do I exist in and how do I integrate my power in each of them?  Here are some of our comments:

• Independence: Some of us are shifting who we depend on and how much we need from them. It used to be that we had no choice (e.g. we were dependent on our parents) but now we are at the age that we have a choice about who we depend on.  This feels like a shift of power and an increase in personal power because of becoming independent.  Rather than thinking of it as dependence, we can think of it as a resource.  We all need resources.  We get to choose who, how, when, where, why we take advantage of the resources available to us.  There is less power struggle when framing it as resources rather than dependence.  Where it used to be that finding your own resources where your family was the center of all resources, now you can look at a huge variety of places. We all have the capability to find new resources.  We get used to our sources and don't think expanding the resources that we have.  And now we have this group, a community, as a new resource.
• Fuel of Passion: When thinking about when and how I feel powerful, it was all about going after the things that I really want.  If I am really pursuing my passion, my goals, my desires, what matters to me, the things I really want, then I feel really powerful. It is important to take the first steps and choose to go in the direction your heart/soul wants to go toward.  I have to surrender myself to it.  I may not think this is what I am supposed to be doing. We may need to allow ourselves to be surprised because we may feel like we know what our passion is or what our life purpose is OR we feel like we have never known what it is and we will never know. Allow yourself to be surprised, open up, surrender, allow your passions to be, to exist.  Read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho for a wonderful story about following your heart. There is a huge loss of power to not know your passions.  The yang part of your power includes the fire of your passions.
• Empowering Others. We can empower others by teaching them "to fish rather than fishing for them". We teach them where to find and how to use resources for themselves so that they don't need to be dependent on us. We increase our own power when we empower others.
• Confidence in myself has caused me to have only myself as my sole resource.  There is a feeling of stability and safety because I know I can always count on myself.  I never have to rely on others. This can cause me to stretch myself too thin and isolate myself.  However, there is a lot you give up by not needing others or learning how to receive.
• Intersections of positional power and personal power seem to have the best outcomes.  The effect of my actions is tangible.  There are also some places where they don't intersect that has more intangible results.  I want to chose to live as if the results are the same whether I am in a position of power or not in my current domain.
• The misuse of power during my childhood caused some brokenness that I have about power inside me.  My cancer is between my power energy center and my heart energy center.  I feel the cancer came from the fears I had left inside me stemming from the times I experienced someone using their power to damage those that cannot protect themselves (too young to be able to create boundaries).  Because I grew up with that, I avoided becoming a powerful person. I associated being powerful with unintentionally hurting others -- because I don't believe my parents intended to hurt anyone.  My deepest rooted fear was that if I was at all in my place of power, I could unintentionally hurt those around me.  And that is untenable to me; I cannot live in a place where I am hurting people, so I stepped away from my power and made myself smaller. And that was the way I lived my life up until two weeks ago.  I spent about four months just exploring power and found that it was a lot different than the picture I had grown up with. I choose to change my relationship with power.  So, my relationship with my parents had a huge affect on me.  Now my relationship with them is very different, and it is not just because of distance. I feel safer, I am with myself and for myself, I am more alive, more complete, more able to take risks with myself and with them, and more expansive in being on the earth and being able to take up space then when I was trying to be small and not be powerful so that I didn't hurt anyone.
• Being authentic .  One group member asserted that when his is being authentic with someone and something he does/says somehow creates pain, he thinks of it as "there is pain that is going to be created as a side-effect of my being truthful" rather than "I have hurt someone ".  There is a kindness that comes from being able to be truthful. Example: someone is in a situation where there is definitely negative energy spinning around them but they don't really know what it is (it is like a record is spinning around in a corner but no one has put the needle on it so no one can hear the message). Giving them the message gives them the opportunity to step into the reality of the situation and respond.  There is a very powerful bond that happens in the situation where both people were authentic and vulnerable with each other.  Making a commitment to be uncomfortable together and sticking through the uncomfortable times, creates trust and strength (power).
• Being grounded. I want to get rid of the stuff in my life that saps my power.  Getting rid of fear-based programming, being hopeful, accepting, free ... Yeah!  There is a feedback loop established when you are comfortable with where you are at: it is easier to let go of other things, to not be scared.  When I feel more grounded, I take feedback as input rather than critical judgments.
• Receiving.  One of the things I found since becoming ill, is there was a huge power in being in receiving mode.  Whether or not you *need* to receive, allowing yourself to receive is a beautiful yin power. I feel powerful now because I hear feedback from other's telling me I am powerful.  I received permission (from others and finally from myself) to believe that I was powerful. But, I couldn't hear it until I could receive the acknowledgement.  And receiving the acknowledgement of my power, increased my power -- nice!
• Everyone Empowered . Can you want for everyone around you to be fully in their own power? Giving them complete permission to be powerful?  When we were playing pool the other night, I decided I would experience wanting for you what I wanted for myself: that every ball would slide into the pocket.  It was interesting to experience.  I wondered if I felt like I was giving up my power to want that for you.  Can you really want everyone around you to be successful?  And what happens to the world if we are all allowed to be successful?  We are not needing to compete; rather we are wanting everyone to experience their own successes and joy.  We want everyone to manifest abundance.  Can you invest some of your own energy toward others -- we are doing that here:  we are supporting each others' becoming fully powerful beings, we are actively manifesting.  It excites me to think about this.  It is so different than what we are taught.
• Example/Modeling.  One group member said he had found he can attract people back to their compassion by modeling it.  There is power in example.  Sometimes people want to be compassionate but they forget and when you mirror it to them they remember their own compassion.  That includes being compassionate with themselves! Another person related: When I first became a parent, I realized that the only way I could really teach my children anything, was to live the example of it.  I could not say "you should be like this or you should do that" but not live in alignment with my demands of them.  My children would reject my teachings in that case.  However, I was also aware that I was not going to be able to show them how to live as a perfectly balanced being. I was not going to be able to live the perfect example of all I wanted for them (integrity, compassion for themselves and others, love, joy, laughter, awareness, exuberance, etc. etc.).  What I *could* do was be honest with them about my journey.  I could be an example of a person on a journey full of adventures. The life journey is my process of continuing to become better aligned with my ideals.  If I could share with them my daily discoveries of all types, the joys and sorrows, the delight I felt even in a new realization that I was limited in some way (because now I could release myself from the limitation); if I could share with them my journey, my process, then they would learn to see themselves as adventurers in all parts of their lives; as willing participants, earnestly receptive and alive.  I could be an example of that!
• Here is a list of some of the "reasons" we tell ourselves about why we "cannot be fully in our power right now":
  • I don't have it all figured out yet
  • I am not absolutely positive that my decision will be the right decision for the group, then I can't make a decision
  • I don't know what the result will be and I want a guarantee that because my intentions are good all the results of my actions will be good.
  • Perfectionism
  • When I stop judging myself
  • I am not familiar with this space.  I need to become more familiar with it before I can truly move into it.
  • I don't know how to be powerful because of the "unknown and unknowable".
  • I need more experience
  • I need to pay more attention and give it more focus before I am ready
  • I have too much to do; obligations
  • I need a safe environment
  • I need permission to be powerful from others and from myself
  • I can't be living fully from my power until I have explained it to everyone and they understand why this is a good thing for me to do
  • I am worried how my shadow-side will show up if I am powerful; subconscious might have "bad" goals that I am unaware of
  • Being powerful is an indulgence and I can do it until I have all my "real work" and obligations taken care of.  We don't allow ourselves to be powerful as our default mode.  When I have everything else done, then I will deserve it and then I can be powerful.
  • It would not be fair to others for me to be powerful; things would be unequal; I need to keep myself the same size as or smaller than everyone around me
  • I don't know how to be powerful in this moment
  • I don't have enough energy
  • I don't have time right now
  • I'm afraid I might harm someone
  • It is a waste of time
  • I might fail or make mistakes
  • What will people think of me?  How will people judge me?
  • Laziness
  • Not willing to act without knowing everything
  • Need to do more research; analysis paralysis; ready, aim, aim, aim, aim ..
  • I am not secure enough in myself
  • I am not good enough yet
  • I tell myself that I might get too over-bearing or want power over others, so I keep my power small to avoid doing that.
  • Maybe there will be a ripple effect from my actions that I am unaware of and don't want
  • I can't see my self-worth, so I can't feel my power.  Lack of confidence.
  • Accepting others' view of the world.
  • People are going to be uncomfortable around me when I am living fully in my power.  I am not sure I am willing to be in my power if it causes people around me to be uncomfortable?  I might even lose some relationships.
  • I might be rejected.
  • I can open the door and see my power; however, it is much harder to actually step through the door because I know I can't step back.  It is even hard to experiment with learning about power because what happens if I step through the door inadvertently?  (Shamanic death.)
  • My life is going to change if I do this.  I can't control how it is going to change. Am I willing to accept the changes whatever they are?
  • What if I acquire power and then lose it? Could I handle that?
  • I excuse myself from being powerful because of the environment or the people around me.  How can I be in my power here in this high tech corporate hell?  Or how can I be powerful when I am around all these angry people?  Excuses, excuses, excuses ...
  • I am afraid to take up space.  I know if I am truly living from the center of my power place, there is a presence and energy that emanates from me that takes up space. 
  • If only this was different, or that was different, or ... if only, if only, if only.
  • I motivate myself by beating myself up.  I keep myself within an "acceptable" place by beating myself up.  I promise myself I will do better tomorrow because I really messed up today. (Better motivator is your desire to do the best you can in this moment.)
• What is your action plan for moving into your power?
  • Getting quiet.  Getting into my body.
  • Just do it without worrying about whether I am ready.
• High-level categories of healthy power:
  • Influence, Affect
  • Action, Yang, Control
  • Presence, Yin, Receptive
  • Opportunity, Options, Choices
  • Wholeness, Balanced, Centered, Grounded
  • Creative, Manifesting, Abundance
  • Authenticity, Integrity
• Saying Yes! I took what I thought was a baby step toward living fully in my power every moment.  I decided I had explored the concept of power enough and was now ready to experience it.  So, each morning and evening I took a few moments to go into my body and feel the experience of being fully in the center of my power.  I thought that if I became familiar with the sensations of the experience, then I could call it to myself during times of need.  Also, I thought the more familiar I become with the sensation, the easier it would be to move into it (the Taoist concept of "doing without doing" by having something become part of your core).   What happened after just a couple times of doing the exercise was amazing.  I found myself realizing I was experiencing the sensation at different times without having to consciously move myself into that space. For example, during an emotional phone conversation with a friend I realized I was talking differently and also feeling the sensation of being centered in my power; I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote a poem that flowed out of me (the first writing I had been able to do since being diagnosed with cancer last June); I had a vision and immediately manifested it (these Gatherings).   Just the having said "yes" to living in my own power, caused me to move into it much more fully and quickly than I had thought possible.  It was a fun and amazing surprise.  (It is difficult to bring your whole being into your mental concept of power or your "idea" of it.  It is much easier to invite our bodies back into the feeling of it.)
• Spirals. One group member mentioned that something funny would happen to him during the changing of the seasons. For example, summer time would remind him of last summer and he would be afraid he was going back; he would be reminded of when he was a year younger. He was like "No, Wait!  I don't want to go back to 15 years old!"  :-D  "I have made all this personal growth since last summer and I don't want to lose it. I am afraid I will be sucked back into it.  However I noticed that in a lot of things it is like a spiral:  you will come back to the same point but you are higher this time, and then you will come around again but you will be at an even higher level."
• Taking up space.  There is the power of being authentic, living within your truth, a power of presence.  If I am truly living from the center of my power, there is a presence and energy that emanates from me and it takes up space. I learned to keep my power in a small place. I grew up afraid to take up space because I might get hurt, or hurt someone unintentionally, or take up space they need, or call attention to myself in a negative way.  When taking up space in an energy way, in being present with yourself, you are allowing your power to be, expand, and exist; and you influence, change situations, you speak up.  I was getting stuck in not taking up space ... not allowing myself just to exist.
• Comfort. It hit home for me tonight that I am only comfortable with things I am familiar with. I don't want to explore things that I don't know. It is hard for me to go into places I am not familiar with because it is hard to imagine what will happen in a whole other space. So I pull in my power in those situations. I feel that I need to familiarize myself with all new spaces.
• Feeling power in your body.  One group member: During the last group time of immersing ourselves in the feeling of power, I was envisioning it out in front of me and happening to someone else. I was sitting there watching it and I realized it was supposed happening to me.  So I brought it into *me* and I felt it and it was so intense my eyes burst open. I didn't realize that I hadn't been sensing it until then.   Yep!! The feeling is so yummy you will want to experience it all the time and you will want everyone around you to experience it as well.
• Playing the game. If I can accept how I am and accept what is happening right now no matter what, no one can have power over me.  The usual way I perceive someone having power-over-me to control me is my fear of their judging me, or they won't like what I say, and I want them to accept me.  If I accept how I am and what the other person is doing, they lose that power over me. Actually, I gain my own power.  It is a martial arts kind of thing: if you are able to stay in your center/balance, you have the power to choose how you will respond and how the interaction is going to progress.  You have a lot more options and choices, all the things we talk about power including, come when you can move and still stay in the center of your power and you don't have to be checking all the time, testing things and pulling yourself back in.  The more familiar it is to be in your power place, the more you can just exist there without losing your balance and getting toppled over.  And then when you do act, it is not out of a place where you are trying to control someone else either.  This takes us back to something we discussed earlier: can you really want everyone around you to succeed and be in their power.  It is a dance and you are keeping your power centered. From there can you want everyone around you to be fully powerful. Or do you feel like there is only so much power in the world and if they have power then you get less. If there is an allotment, you just want to make sure you get your fair share. If everybody is powerful, will there be anything left for me or am I going to have less power than others.  However, when two people who are truly centered and powerful are moving together in the dance of martial arts or any kind of dance or movement together, physical or otherwise, it becomes a much different experience. Being able to want everyone to succeed, gives you a different kind of tension in playing with them that is enjoyable in a totally different way than wanting to be competitive, to trounce on them, to win, to want everything.  Instead of wanting to win, you just want truth for each person. The win is in engaging fully with each other. Imagine a world where the other team is giving you energy; is wanting you to succeed as much as they want themselves to win.  The goal is for each team to live and play fully and to create together the best game, regardless of the score. When you leave the game feeling more alive, more engaged in the world, more centered and powerful, more connected with everything, you could have won or lost, the score could have been whatever, you don't even remember who won, just the experience of playing the game was an amazingly powerful thing.

We ended the first evening by spending a few moments inside our bodies inviting in the sensation of living our lives from the center of our power.

• Visualize and hold the feeling of your new understanding of the kind of power you want to create in your life which will be unique to each of you.  Maybe it is balanced, centered, grounded, alive, juicy, inclusive of all beings, healthy, joyous. 
• Immerse yourself in it, let it flow through your body and then expand out into the energy field around you and let it surround you.
• Then pull it in, condense it into your power energy center (chakra, solar plexus) and anchor it there.
• Take a few moments to be in appreciation and gratitude for your power.
• Ask yourself: If I was living my life from the center of my power place: How would it feel, taste, smell, look, sound? How would my energy shift? How would my mind think of things differently? What would my heart experience and yearn for? My soul?  Let yourself feel the sensations of all of these aspects.

Sections:  Power in General, My Relationship with Power, Power in My Relationships.

Power in my Relationships

• We started off by considering the following questions: How does power affect my relationships?  (Consider at least three categories of relationships: (1) peers, friends, siblings, etc., (2) authority figures such as parents, bosses, teachers, etc., and (3) with people you have authority over.) How do I want power to be included in my relationships?
  • I can leave the relationship when I know it is no longer healthy for me.
  • I want others to fix my problems for me.
  • I feel my parents have power over me because I feel guilty and obligated to do what they want and not what I want; it is a rule; I am "supposed to" do what they tell me to.
  • I am beginning to realize I have the power to allow others to have less power over me -- however I haven't actually stepped into that power yet.
  • Weebles wobble but they don't fall down:  I feel like I am a weeble and I will be okay; I can trust that I have developed the skill to be able to come back to center when I get knocked over.
  • Trust and the lack of it affects whether we are willing to give power to others.
  • It feels good to be vulnerable with people you trust. 
  • Power struggles with others come from feeling parts of ourselves have been abandoned by others or ourselves.
  • The boundaries you set up will be determined by how much trust you have for someone else. 
  • We can choose to be in collusion with someone wanting to have power over us.  If we accept that the only power they have is when we choose to let them affect us any way they want to.
  • Our relationships with our children is different with regard to the collusion ideas.  A three-year-old child cannot be expected to have a choice about colluding with her parent. If the parent does something that hurts the child, she doesn't have the maturity, strength, power to know she has a choice about colluding because she is dependent on her parent.  At some point we start being able to recognize that we can chose how we want to allow our parents to affect us.  Where that point is, is different for everyone. We all have places that can be hooked into by our parents.  I am colluding with my father when I allow him to hook into me, but I can choose to look at things differently and I can left his stuff just flow past me rather than taking up residence inside me.
  • I always want authority figures to see me in my best light (whether I am in my best light or not).  As well as people who have connections or have something I want.  Question:  So you are willing to give up parts of yourself in order to get something you do want or to avoid something you don't want?   Did you actually, in the end game, lose power or gain power by that action?
  • When I feel there is a risk that I would be rejected or abandoned because I am showing my power, I am afraid to be powerful.  Question: So if I am going to reject you I have power over you because then you will change, not be yourself, be what you think I want you to be, and then you will give up part of yourself (your power). Unless you choose not to collude with me.  In which case you would not be afraid.  You could say, "reject me, I don't care"  :-)
  • In order to be in better relationship with others, I need to be in good relationship with myself and my power. 
  • When you get emotionally lit up about something that appears to be about someone else yet, when you think about it, it is not really something between the two of you rather it is just about them and their own choices about their own life -- then, it is usually because it symbolizes something that you have either abandoned in yourself or that you judge harshly about yourself.  So, in those cases, it is interesting to ask yourself what the person's actions symbolize (describe them in three words or phrases quickly to get an idea about what it could mean to you) and then look inward.  If their actions are about expressing themselves, maybe you don't express yourself and that part of you feels abandoned.  Or maybe you express yourself in damaging ways and you judge yourself about it.  Just take the experience of getting emotionally lit up, as a message that it is time to have an internal conversation.
  • It was important for me to recognize that everyone that needs something does not need *me* to fix it immediately. 
  • I am afraid I will be labeled selfish if I don't help everyone that needs something.
  • When I am not in my place of power, I become timid and indecisive.  That ends up being a drain on the other person in the relationship.  Therefore, not being in my power ends up costing others.  That is another reason why we would want the entire world to be powerful.  Then you are not having to take care of everyone, or make all the decisions, etc.   Also, waves interfere with each other in phase, become higher in amplitude. 
  • Conversations between two people that are in the own power are wonderful.  You don't have to constantly be managing them and worrying about what you are saying.  Both people can be relaxed and trust the relationship to be able to move through whatever comes up.  There is a very very different kind of conversation that happens when everyone just wants the truth to be spoken and nobody is going to get defensive.  You don't have to be worrying that you are going to say something that is going to cause their emotional bells to start ringing and then we are going to have to go off on tangents about things we are not really talking about.  When you have confidence that both people can take care of themselves, you can have much deeper, more reality-based, fun conversations rather than conversations that end up in fights and loss of energy.  Having to worry not just about content but about the delivery of the content can be so draining. 
  • Being in our own power is a gift to others.
  • My energy shifts depending on who I am with.  There is the push and pull of energy that I am always aware of and adjusting depending on the person and the situation.  What I want is to have a place where I am grounded in my own energy, confident and secure, such that I don't have to be adjusting all the time.
  • Parenting via empowering your children with a shared trust, respect, equality is so different than parenting via power-over. Letting your children know that their being in their power is a *gift* to you, is incredibly empowering for all parties.
  • I have an unconscious desire to have other people fix me or figure out my problems for me.  When I take responsibility for fixing it myself, I am less of a burden on them. 
• How do I deal with relationships that feel "unequal"? 
• When do I make myself small in relationship?
• What do I do when I am afraid I will over-power someone else?
• What do you do when you are afraid someone else will over-power you?
• Look at the times where you have felt powerless or at the times you labeled others as powerless and see where you believed the power actually existed in those situations. Then correlate those with your life choices; looking for evidence that you may have chosen to behave in the ways that those who appeared to have power behaved.  For example, if you felt powerless as a child and you believed that your parents were powerful, you might find that without realizing it you are emulating some of your parents' behaviors.

All of us shared something each night that planted seeds inside someone else here. I saw faces light up when each of you were talking/sharing -- not every face every time, but there was something that each of you said that held within it something important for someone else here tonight and touched them in a key place. That's the beauty of bringing together a community where we can touch each other and be touched, responded to and respond to.