Personal Power

Would you rather feel powerful or be powerful?

When it comes to our relationships there is a world of difference between these two experiences.

To feel powerful people often resort to manipulation and coercion.

To be powerful is to come from a position of self-knowledge and be able to regulate your emotions.

Clients enter into therapy because they feel powerless in some area of their life.

When counselling is effective clients learn and embody the “Laws of Personal Power”. These are the fundamental building blocks for living an empowered, in charge life.

The Laws of Personal Power:

Self-Regulation

• Powerless people tend to be resentful, dependent and depressed
• The sense of self of the powerless person will be dependent on external factors
• Empowered people have the ability to regulate their thoughts, feelings and behaviours
• Powerful people are able to take in the perspectives of others in a disagreement and are less reactive and impatient

Self-Awareness

• Powerless people act on feelings and impulses and are unaware that their interpretations are based on faulty emotional logic
• Powerful people understand that underneath anger is usually hurt and that it is in their best interest to regulate their anger before acting

Ownership

• Powerless people believe that others “push their buttons” and “make” them act in destructive ways
• All they can do to prevent others from “making” them feel bad is to control, manipulate or seduce them
• Empowered people get that their environment triggers them but does not control them

Focus

• Powerless people focus on what they cannot do
• Powerful people focus on what they can do to improve their situation or their experience of it

Notice the times that you default into a powerless mode and resort to manipulation and control tactics.

Challenge yourself to step up, take ownership and not tell yourself that you are behaving in this manner because your partner is making you upset.

Feeling Powerful is temporary and depends on manipulative tactics, a shaky way to live your life. Being Powerful is a steady internal state and you know that you can trust yourself to handle difficult moments.

Tags: Behaviour, Change, Relationship Patterns

This entry was posted on Monday, May 16th, 2011 at 8:00 AM and is filed under IMAGO and Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.