We are arriving at a time on this planet when each one of us will bedeeply tested to see where we stand with regards to our personal power.This means that it is a good idea to be as knowledgeable as possibleabout what our real power is and how to manage it.Fairytales and myths abound about gaining or losing power and what thenature of true power is. Here is an ancient Sami tale about power thatcarries much wisdom. The Sami people are the original shamanic peoplewho occupy Lapland, the northern parts of Norway, Finland, and the farWestern parts of Northern Russia. Some of them are Caucasian and someare more Mongol in appearance and they still live there today in smallnumbers.
This tale involves two noajdies, shamans in the Samitradition. The two shamans names were Kardias and Torajas and they wereboth young men who fulfilled the role of shaman for their village.Kardias was much loved by the people because he healed them andperformed many great services for them. Torajas was jealous of Kardiasand wanted to be more famous, more respected, and more loved than he. Hewas always scheming to make Kardias look bad and make himself look goodbut somehow the people always ended up loving Kardias more. One dayKardias went fishing and Torajas took the opportunity to conjure up anenormous Pike (fish) who came up and swallowed Kardias whole. In thisway Torajas felt he would both impress the people with his power and getrid of Kardias at the same time. Only the people of the villageinterpreted the event to mean that Kardias had been summoned to theheavenly realms by the gods and took it as a sign of his great powerthat he had disappeared. They honored him and respected him all themore. Torajas realizing that the plot had backfired on him, desperatelyforged a plan that would show he was the greater and more powerfulshaman. He himself went out to the sea and fished for the Pike that hadswallowed up Kardias. Eventually he succeeded and bringing the Pike backto the village proceeded to cut the Pikes belly open whereupon Kardiascame tumbling out. Torajas wanted to show the people that indeed Kardiashad not been taken up to heaven but had merely been in the Pike’s bellyall along, put there by none other than himself. When Kardias was freedfrom the Pikes stomach he revealed to the people what Torajas had doneto him and the people all sympathized with him. They turned on Torajasand he lost all respect and all honor. He was seen as weak andvulnerable to the whims of his narcissistic ego.
Typical offairytales this story is meant to teach the difference between realpower and wannabe, egoic power. In the story the people of the villagecould determine the difference between the two kinds of power andclearly chose the real thing over the manipulative power of Torajas.Like all fairytales each of the characters are meant to be symbolic ofparts of ourselves, thus we have a petty part that is willing to doanything for external power to feed our egos and we have an authenticself that demonstrates real power. The Pike represents the obstacles andtests that we put ourselves through to develop our real power. Thevillagers represent that part of us that knows deep down the differencebetween the real thing and the fake and is ruthless with ferreting thetruth out.
While there are many different definitions of powerwe could use the following one as a very simple working definition: Realpower is the ability to be resonant with the Tao in such a way as toget in sync with the power that already exists. So any attempt to bepowerful in a way that is not resonant with the Tao or Spirit is notreal power. Being out of sync with the Tao prevents one from everbecoming truly powerful. Naturally a person would want to know, “What isthe Tao and how do I get in sync with that.” The usual answer is, “Ifyou have to ask you are not doing it and probably not ready for it.” Sohumans spend countless lifetimes flailing around trying to figure outwhat power is and making endless mistakes around the whole theme. Havingforgotten what Spirit really is they can not get in sync with it veryeasily, so they must gradually learn the hard way what it means to be inharmony with Spirit.
The game we seem to be playing is this:Power appears to be something we must acquire by certain actions. Webelieve we are born without it and must get it. Power seems to come andgo and we believe we must wrest it away from others in order to have itourselves. We think that power is control over others. We try to graspit but it slips through our fingers. When we do manage to gather as muchpower as possible as defined by culture, we find that it doesn’t seemto be lasting or real just like in the fairytale. It appears to be takenaway from us on a regular basis by bigger, more powerful gorillasaround us. Certainly when we grab power it does not lead us to happinessand in fact it often backfires on us making us miserable instead.Eventually we discover that having real power often involves a loss ofattachment, of paradoxically letting go of the appearance of it. Wediscover that only by surrendering to Spirit can we access real power.We find out that real power has nothing to do with control over othersbut has more to do with exhibiting control over our own weaknesses. Wediscover that we never lost power in the first place and it has beenwith us from the beginning. We just failed to perceive the real deal andgot lost in a maze of dead ends and pretenses. In the end we have ahearty laugh and the joke all along has been on us.
Mother Power and Father Power
Welive in a universe where everything is broken down into polarities sonaturally power appears to be broken down into a series of polarities aswell, external power and internal power, father power and mother power,material power and spiritual power, dark power and light power, and soon. Let us consider father power and mother power because these impactus everyday and few people are aware of how they do so.
Each oneof us, regardless of whether we are male of female, has mother powerand father power within us and how we use these is strongly influencedby our ancestral lineage, how the men and women on each side of ourfamilies handled these aspects of their power. Of course the mostinfluential people for most of us are our own parents and how theyembodied power in the world, handled power issues with each other, anddemonstrated power to us or over us. In addition to the influence of ourimprinters and ancestors each of us carries the sum total of how wehave handled power in all the lifetimes leading to the current one. Weeach have beliefs about power, perceptions about how others handle it,and perceptions about how we have handled it or tend to handle it incertain situations. These beliefs have everything to do with a positiveor negative relationship to power, a confidence around it or fear of it,and a sense of maturity regarding it.
Mother power is theability to use the feminine in a constructive manner. Our relationshipswith our mothers determine to a large extent whether mother power is anobstacle that is turned against ourselves, or whether it can be used as asupport for enlarging our power base. Mother power is global,pervasive, and inclusive. It has to do with the ability to handle manythings at once in a calm, peaceful manner.
Father power is theability to use the masculine force in a constructive manner. Likewiseour relationships with our fathers determine whether this force can beused constructively or is turned against self. Father power is focusedand laser-like. It has to do with the ability to persevere and see aproject through to the end. This power also has to do with naming thingsand using language as a form of persuasion.
Generally ourrelationship with the opposite sex parent is critical because it governshow we use the energy that we need more help with. This is mitigatedsomewhat by our roles and past life familiarity with the gender inquestion.
There are certain basic guidelines in life thatdetermine how we handle male and female forms of power. First of all wetend to do to others what was done to us when we were children,especially by our fathers and mothers. Therefore children who werevictims of abuse often become perpetrators of abuse later on. Childrenwho were treated with respect tend to become people who treat otherswith respect. We also tend to do to ourselves what was done to us aschildren. Again we will attempt to carry out the approach of eachgendered parent subconsciously toward ourselves. If our mothersconstantly worried about us then we tend to worry about ourselves fromthis feminine place. If our fathers gave us a vote of no confidence wewill tend to give ourselves a vote of no confidence regarding ourmasculine abilities. On the other hand if each parent gave us positivefeedback then this same positive feedback will be reinforced by our ownself-talk within.
Here are a list of traits that are associatedwith the father masculine and mother feminine sides of ourselves. Thesetraits of course fall into positive and negative poles in keeping withour tendency to experience everything in polarities.
Positive qualities of Mother Power
Receptive;grateful, nurturing, feeding, warm, safe, vulnerable in intimacy,emotionally protective, creative, spontaneous, flexible, adaptable,community oriented, inspired, peaceful, healing, tranquil, validating,supportive, comforting, embracing, connecting
Negative qualities of Mother Power
Confusion,chaos, unpredictable, emotionally abusive, unsupportive, highlycritical, invalidating, emotionally destructive, smothering, cold,isolated, withholding, entangling, manipulative, seductive, entrapping,confining, limiting, weakening, over-protecting
Positive qualities of Father Power
Generous,protective, clear, certain, physically strong, good boundaries, safe,decisive, capable in the world, good provider, alert, focused,organized, active, plan oriented, good at surviving, aggressive,productive, able to reach goals, reliable, good at structure, able tocontrol the outcome productively.
Negative qualities of Father Power
Tyrannical,abusive, physically destructive, overly aggressive, dominating,demanding of accomplishment, overly structured, attacking, tight fisted,hypocritical, obsessed, competitive, over working, cynical,dictatorial, oppressive, enslaving, taking advantage, controlling.
Lookover these lists and then look at your relationships. How do you behaveat work, with your children, with employees, as a friend, with enemies,as a teacher, with yourself? How well do you take care of yourself? Howdo you give yourself a hard time? Are you a mother toward yourself or afather? Which part of each do you play out, the positive or thenegative poles? What are you more comfortable with? Which part do youapply toward your spiritual life? Are you father oriented or motheroriented in your relationship with Spirit? Is your father power moreresonant with Spirit or is your mother power more in harmony with it.Which side of you is more visible? Which more underground, less visibleto others?
I had a male employee years ago that from day onewould never address me or look at me for more than a second. All hiscommunication was directed toward Lena, my wife, even questions thatwere more appropriately asked for me. At first I took it personally anddidn’t like him but then I realized he performed his work well and thathe simply had mother power issues and father power issues and this hadnothing whatsoever to do with me. Nevertheless he could never hold a joblong and I could understand why. Simply put, he was out of balance.
RecentlyI had the opportunity to co-teach a course on purposeful consulting at aUniversity in Southern California. Part of my job as a contributingfaculty member was to conduct transitional ceremonies and present ashamanic, spiritual perspective regarding consulting work. In thiscourse we were trying to break new ground and push the envelope, to getstudents to re-evaluate their predictable stances and come from a placeof authenticity without necessarily always knowing the answer.Interestingly, various students perceived the faculty in entirelydifferent ways. For example some students absolutely hated my approachand determined that I was arrogant, controlling, insensitive, andabusive. Others saw me as helpful, wise, and offering a change ofperspective. Still others saw me as risk taking and powerful. Each sawme in the light of their relationship with power, some through thefather lens and some through the mother lens. This experience wasextraordinarily valuable for me to experience because I too wasprocessing their reactions through my father power and mother powerlenses. The ones who didn’t like me were women with father power issuesso this bought up my own mother power wound, invalidation by the female.What they needed was an accepting male authority that would not takeumbrage at their reactions. Knowing this I made every attempt not toreact but to stay neutral. I found the exercise challenging. At the sametime I was offered the opportunity to look at my own programming andsee where I was still reactive.
My positive mother power wascompassionate toward them, wanting to heal their wounds. My negativemother power wanted to be highly critical of them and desired towithhold myself from them. My positive father power was clear andcertain of what I was doing while my negative father power was perhapsoverly controlling and overly structured in an attempt to deal with anacademic setting. The actual truth, I will perhaps never know. Howeverthese kinds of tough experiences are worth their weight in gold becauseonly where there are these challenging and differing viewpoints can Isee what forces are working within me. Take advantage of theseopportunities when they present themselves because you can see soclearly and quickly what is running you. If it doesn’t feel good thenthere is a lack of resonance with spirit and thus very limited power isavailable. If you can find a way to feel good about what is going on,even if it is tough, then you can access real power because you arefunctioning in harmony with Spirit. In this event I sometimes feltextraordinarily good and sometimes I felt awful. I was wafting back andforth between the two and thus I was experiencing fluctuating power,sometimes yes, sometimes no.
In actuality every event in life isa comment on your relationship with power. If you are simply reactivethen you are at the mercy of the negative poles. If, on the other handyou are willing to look at the deeper lessons, you have a much greaterchance at finding the synthesis instead of swinging wildly from polarityto polarity. I began this article with a working definition of realpower being what is in resonance with the Tao or Spirit. In conclusion Iwill offer another but resonant definition to the first: Real power isthat which can not be taken away from you for any reason. People cantake your money, your possessions, your position in society, yourreputation, and even your physical freedom so these have nothing to dowith real power. What can never be taken from you is the wisdom andexperience you have acquired that is now part of your essence. Yourspecial relationship with Spirit can never be taken from you withoutyour permission. That is your real power.
Blessings,
José
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Replies
I agree totally with what was said and loved the explanation of the positive and negative mother father powers and how they can be played out and the complexities that present themselves even to a seasoned teacher caught in the middle of it. It's one thing to see the drama on the outside but to be able to navigate and reflect your own drama in relationship to other's dramas --that is truly when you need to know your own power and connection to spirit.
Thank you again for posting this!
love and light
Theresa