What is real power?

(My first Patheos blogs will give you a context for what I mean by “Evolutionary Power.”)

 POWER.

What does that word bring to your mind?

Do you have images of domineering strongmen? Of fat-cat billionaires puffing on cigars as they strategize their next massive takeover? Maybe you imagine generals or demagogues or politicians sitting around, making decisions that control the lives of millions.

Not me. Not now. When I think of power, my mind goes to: Feeling waves of energy streaming through my body. Knowing I’m in balance with my life, in my relationships, with nature. I imagine myself dancing through the world playing, finding the next fascinating experience to step into. I’m aware of myself as a highly resourced creator, understanding that my life is absolutely an out-picturing of my inner self. I know that I’m steering my own vessel while I’m guided by life to the next perfectly timed and constructed experience that will evolve my soul.

I sure didn’t start with those images. I can still easily bring up the old pictures of what I now think of as “Power Over.” Like all of us, I’ve been steeped in a world of hierarchy, where the questions of “who’s in charge here,” how to “climb the ladder,” and “who’s to blame for this!?” are part of the ongoing social dialogue. When I perceive some sort of threat—and my mind comes up with some doozies—my Reactive Brain instantly reengages those parts of me that believe that fighting, fleeing, or freezing is the only way through. Now, though, when my Reactive Brain takes over, there’s a different part of me that is on the outside of the perceived calamity, patiently waiting for my more expansive perspective to return.

I’ve been fascinated by power for many years. Being the fourth of four children in my family, understanding hierarchy was essential to my physical and emotional safety. With my father working long hours and my mother abed with chronic illnesses, it was up to the four of us kids to work out the pecking order. I figured how my collapse into submission could end the fight (“OK, OK! I give in!! Uncle!”), but how taking it too far would just egg my brother on (“What a crybaby!” he’d say with great contempt, as he continued to pound on me). Meanwhile, I took my own budding skills as a pugilist out to the neighborhood, where I knew how to beat up all the kids in my age group.

Up? Down? Was I the one in control or was I at the effect of someone else? I honed my “comparer” self early on. My everyday life was filled with winning and losing—at school, in sports, at the dinner table, with my friends. In retrospect I know that I was far more motivated by not wanting to feel the humiliation of losing than I ever enjoyed the fruits of victory.

As I struggled with my place across social strata through childhood and into adolescence, I caught wind of the Women’s Movement. I was thrilled by the icon of the fist inside of a women’s symbol on the cover of a copy of Sisterhood is Powerful that I checked out of the school library and carried on top of my other books. As I read about injustices and inequality, I found a language that described what my previously ineffable experience. I learned how there were oppressors and the oppressed, those in charge of meting out life’s resources and those who, simply because of the randomness of their gender, race, or class, came up short.

My rage at these built-in inequities reached full bore in college, as I studied gender issues, systems theory, and class. I discovered the concept of “Power With” when I came upon Starhawk’s book, Truth or Dare. I had no idea that any such third choice existed, that of all beings being valued and collaborating with each other. Comparing this possibility against the age-old polarities of “Power Over” and “Power Under”[1] I was intrigued. However, the adrenaline fix of knowing I was “wronged” by sexism and homophobia was more compelling than this new possibility. My self-righteousness gave me clarity and passion that I’d never before experienced, as I continued to divide the world into good and bad, right and wrong.

(To be continued in my next blog…)

[1] Mary Parker Follett (1868-1930) first used these terms.

For more information about me and my work, go to www.juliacolwell.com.