In Pursuit of "Power"

One of the many things in life that tends to catch people's interests is "power".... how to get it and how to use it. One of the most frequent requests that I receive from people who are seeking a new path has to do with power acquisition. This document is an overview of "power" as seen from the Gatekeeper's Path.

Please note that "power" ties in closely with motivation and mastery of people, a topic which will be explored in later documents related to the Gatekeeper's Path.

There are many different types of power, as listed below.

* Personal Power: The ability that an individual has to gain fulfillment of his/her needs and desires through acquiring resources from the surrounding environment and people.

* Power Over: Manipulating or controlling other individuals against their will.

* Power With: The ability to work cooperatively with others to obtain fulfillment of individual or shared needs and desires.

* Power Beneath: Giving freely of or sharing of one's own personal power with another so that the other individual is able to obtain fulfillment of his/her needs and desires. A supportive action.

* Compensatory Power: A person who has compensatory power in your life has the ability to reward you - either positively or through removal of negative punishments - for complying with requested activities. A good example of this is your boss: s/he rewards you with a paycheck for complying with the company's request that you show up for work each day and do your job according to the job's requirements.

* Positional Power: A person who has positional power gains power solely through a position they occupy. An example of this would be a judge, a police officer, or the President of the United States.

* Punitive Power: A person who has punitive power has the ability to impose some sort of punishment or loss upon you - most often for failing to comply with requested activities. The punishment could be physical - as an example, spanking a child; or monetary / material, such as withholding a loan or gift; or emotional / mental, such as verbally abuse that implies you are a failure or somehow not worthy.

* Coercive Power - A person who has coercive power is one who is able to gain compliance for requested activities through personality, magnetism, physical beauty or persuasiveness. A "smooth talking" car salesperson would be an example of a person utilizing this type of power. In this case, you are convinced and will engaged in the requested activity, but will feel "not quite right" about it without being sure of why you feel "not quite right" about the situation.

* Compelling Power - A person who has compelling power is one who has something that influences you so that you are motivated to be with that person. You desire to spend time with the person, be in their limelight, admire them, and so on. This person delights you, perhaps through personality, physical appearance, through their life, social or employment achievements. You are more than happy to engage in requested activities for / with this person in order to receive attention from them or to simply share an activity with them.

* Knowledge / Information / Technology (KIT) Power - A person who knows something you need to know has this type of power. As an example, if you have a clogged drain in your house, and you call a plumber for help, he has the knowledge (and tools) to perform the requested activity. Try as you might, you would not be able to unclog your drain without the tools and knowledge to do it.

Any given person in your life circle can hold one or more positions of power within your life. The positions of power they hold can vary at different points in your life. Situations can cause the particular power base a person holds to change.

Some examples:

* You like your boss a lot. She has a wonderful, sparkling personality. Not only is she your manager, but she also takes additional time to teach you "the ropes" with regards to getting your job done. In this example, your boss hold several positions: - power with, because she works with you to get the job done for the company; compensatory power, because she rewards your work with a paycheck each week; punitive power since she can remove you from your position if you fail to perform; compelling power, because you like her and want to be with her; and KIT power, because she has some of the knowledge you need to acquire in order to be able to do the best job possible, which is one of your goals.

* You're out for a night on the town with your lover. A very attractive, sensual person of the opposite sex as your lover breezes on to the scene. Your lover's gaze is caught and held capture. You can see the desire flickering in your lover's eyes as you remind them they are already occupied for the evening. The attractive "other" has temporarily held a position of punitive power in your life because the "other" had the capability to cause you loss of a desired resource - namely, your lover's affection and attention. At the same time, the attractive "other" temporarily held a position of coercive power for your lover. Your lover would have given over his/her attention to the "other" and yet, at the same time, most likely would have felt "not quite right" about giving that attention.

Your comfort level with the positions of power that others occupy in your life is directly related to how their position of power affects your personal power (your ability to gain what you want / need from the surrounding environment and people).

In the example of "the boss" shown above, most likely you are comfortable with all of the positions of power she holds in your life, except for the punitive power position. You probably feel a little uncomfortable about that, but since she also occupies many other positions of power in your life that are supportive of (rather than opposed to) your personal power, you allow the "good" to override the "bad". Whenever discomfort with her position of punitive power arises, you most likely spend a few minutes reminding yourself of the "good" things and reassuring yourself that you are doing a good job and that chances are she will have no need or reason to act upon her position of punitive power.

In the example of the "attractive other" above, most likely you were at first very uncomfortable with the position of punitive power that she occupied. You might "weigh" her probability of success to remove the desire resource (your lover) from your life circle. Those calculations probably factored in the positions of power that you hold in your lover's life..... you would weigh the positions of power you hold in your lover's life against the position of power the "attractive other" held in your lover's life to see whether or not you had the lion's share of the measure to determine how threatened your should feel by the "other".

The are two "realities" to power bases.

* Perceived Power - "perceived" - that which is thought to exist. Perceived - the way that we each see things as individuals..... example: "one man's trash is another man's treasure"; "that which is pain to one is pleasure to another". More often than not, the power base a person holds in our lives is perceived. We have granted them that power because we think it exists. We allow the person to hold a certain power base in our lives whether they actually do or do not. An example of this is the "attractive other". We perceive that the "attractive other" held a position of power in our lover's eyes. In reality, our lover could have been looking slightly beyond the "attractive other" and affixed their gaze upon something entirely different, such as the sunset, or a bird resting on a tree limb.

However, because our third brain - our "dinosaur" brain - tends to direct us towards self-preservation (a most natural instinct), our eyes fastened upon the first potential "threat" (the attractive other) we saw and the third brain reacted. We were 100% sure that our lover was gazing at the "attractive other" and oozing with desire. Chances are that if you asked an observing neutral person standing near-by, they might have sided with your lover, who protested and insisted they were looking at the setting sun instead, and thinking of a passionate love-making session with you later, which caused the look of desire to creep into their eyes.

* Actual Power - true power based on reality as it would be seen by others outside of the situation. Usually, though, actual power is limited, more limited than we think it to be. Thus, we tend to allow our perceptions to distort the extent of the actual power.

An example of this would be your boss's position of punitive power in your life. In reality, she could terminate your position. You may perceive this ability to be larger than it is, however, based on your fears and preparedness to face unemployment.

In the case of the clogged drain and the plumber, there is little doubt that the position of KIT power he holds is actual. Depending on how desperate you are to get your drain unclogged, however, your perception of the situation might also want to add a power base of "punitive" to the plumber's arena, as you might perceive that he has the ability to punish you by withholding his skills. No doubt that he can withhold his skills if he so chooses, but few neutral people, after reviewing the situation, would decide that the plumber would withhold his skills from you solely for the purpose of punishing you.

Just as other people hold perceived and actual power bases in our lives, so we hold perceived and actual power bases in their lives.

Sometimes, we may perceive that we hold a particular power base in another person's life, while their perception of the power base we hold can be quite different.

We view the way we behave in ways that are often far different from the perceptions that others may hold of us. Others view the way they behave in a way that is different from the way we view it.

A good example of this is our parents. More often than not, our parents will see themselves as displaying "power beneath" behavior - supportive and giving. They are concerned about us and want to ensure our success. We may see their behave as being "power over" - controlling and manipulating. We feel they are trying to force us to do things their way rather than supporting us in achieving what we want to do.

There is little doubt that we all have strong feelings about power in our relationships. More often than not, the folks in our lives who are in positions of power exercise that power in positive ways, through "power with" and "power beneath" activities that are oriented towards helping us achieve our goals.

Sometimes, we encounter people in our lives who try to practice "power over" but who claim to do so "for your own good". These people try to, or want to, control and manipulate us. They play "power ball" with us. There are ways that we can learn to identify and halt "power ball" games, a topic which will be explored in later documentation on the Gatekeeper's Path.

We tend to carry strong feelings against "power ball" and "power over" positions and people. These feelings may often run towards strong dislike or even hatred.

It is also natural for we humans to focus on the negative rather than the positive. Thus, we most likely can identify and react to "power ball" and "power over" and disregard the positive, support power positions that others hold in our lives.

Sometimes we are guilty of playing "power ball" ourselves. When we do this, we will strongly deny it, and redouble our dislike for the other identifiable folks who play "power ball" against us.

We need to educate ourselves more fully on "power" in order to work with the power bases in our lives, and to allow ourselves to interact more completely, positively and functionally with those who hold power bases in our lives.

Part of this educational process is to discover the power bases and power relationships currently in our lives.

As well, we need to better define what we are seeking when we say we "want power" or "need more power". We can do this through two exercises.

* Determine who holds which power bases in your lives. Grab a few sheets of paper, and divide them into four columns. In column 1, list out the various people in your life, by name. Not everyone in fine detail, but the folks who you spend most of your time with. Your list most likely will include your lover or mate, your family, your children, your friends, co-workers and your boss.

* In Column 2, next to the person's name, give that person a "label" as to the role they occupy in your life. While many people will hold more than one role, pick a primary role, and stick to one "label" per person. Some examples would be "mate", "child", "boss", "co-worker", "friend", "parent".

* In Column 3, list out the various power bases each person holds in your life. Each person can hold one or more power bases. Use the power bases types listed here for reference.

* In Column 4, list out the various power bases that you believe YOU occupy in that person's life. These might be the same as or different than the power bases that they occupy in your life.

* Think about how you feel about they way each person "uses" the power base s/he holds in your life. Do they use it primarily in a positive, supportive manner, or a negative, destructive manner?

* Be aware of the way that your perceptions may alter the actual view of power bases. It may be helpful, if you have a close friend that you feel comfortable in sharing this exercise with, to ask them to look over the list and see if their view of the power bases aligns with yours. If differences are discovered, this doesn't necessarily mean that one view is right, and the other wrong, just that there are different perceptions about the behaviors being displayed, or the roles being fulfilled.

* Once you have discovered and defined the various power bases and roles that others fulfill in your life, and that you correspondingly fill in their lives, you can work towards healing, deflecting, or enhancing those areas appropriately.

* Write down your "power hungers". Just list them out as they come to mind, leaving some space between each one. They most likely will be simple. An example might be "I need more power." "I want power over my lover."

* Try to define each "hunger" more clearly. As an example, "I need more power." could translate to really say, "I need to gain better control over my life and my ability to get what I need." Or "I have needs that are not met, and they need to be taken care of - quickly!". "I want power over my lover." could mean "My lover is doing things I don't like and I want him/her to stop." or "I have needs that I feel my lover should take care of, and s/he doesn't take care of those needs." Or "I'm afraid my lover will do something I don't want him/her to do, and I want to be able to stop them from doing that (such as having an affair or leaving you)".

* Once you have identified your "power hungers" you can begin taking steps to address the problems or needs at the root of the hunger. Realize that there are no instant cures or answers to most of the challenges in life. No doubt you'll need to work out a plan for addressing each of the "hungers", perhaps even seeking professional help from others or advice you can trust from clergy, friends or relatives.

As an example, "I have needs that are not met." could work out to be: "I need more income and / or less debt." This would be your key indicator to sit down and examine your finances, look for ways to reduce your debt, pay off bills, increase your income, etc. Most likely you will not find a "quick fix" here, but would need to enter into some long-range planning, and be willing to bite the bullet to get your spending under control. You may even find yourself facing the possibility of considering a second job, or perhaps looking for a higher-paying position. Ultimately, you could work your way around to expanding your education so as to prepare yourself to seek a higher paying job.

People often feel they want to or need to "gain more power" even after closing examining their power hungers.

Sometimes this translates out to adjusting perceptions, increasing one's own self-worth and finding ways to more fully or better utilize existing power bases in your life, including perhaps putting more into relationships to get more out of them.

The purpose of this document has been to help you more clearly understand what power is, and where it comes from. Having looked at that, we now can see there are several more steps along the path relative to "power" that we can take. Those steps are:

* Increasing self-worth and personal power.

* Improving interpersonal communication skills, which will allow us to be more clear in our communications with others.

* Learning how to get more from the relationships in our lives through giving more.

* Making our needs and desires better known to others in order to gain their support in pursuit of those goals - sometimes this can be as simple as learning how and when to ask for "more" or "help".

* Learning to recognize "power ball" games and how to manage them better.