Sunday, April 26, 2009

Are you powerful in relationships?

You may tend to think of power as something that you demonstrate in your work or in the decisions you make about money, investments or career. But personal, intimate relationships are, I believe, where we have the greatest opportunities to express and explore our power as individuals. Yet relationships are also where we tend to feel more vulnerable and consequently less willing to reveal the very parts of us that usually touch and affect others most profoundly.


Most people feel more competent and on more solid ground when it comes to work and their professional or intellectual skills. This is the realm of the mind, rather than the heart, and it’s where we are taught to focus most of our energies in order to survive, cope and compete in the world. We are not, sadly, taught how to process our emotions or how to express ourselves authentically, openly and honestly. So when our deeper emotions are triggered, as in intimate relationships, we come face to face with all our insecurities and issues around self-acceptance, self-worth and self-expression. And it is these issues that, ironically, both uniquely define us and keep us stuck, since our insecurities usually represent the flip side to our greatest strengths. So if, for example, self-expression is a wobbly area for you, it will almost certainly turn out to be where you find your greatest fulfillment, once you find practical ways to address the insecurity and start expressing yourself verbally, physically, creatively and in the way you dress or present yourself to the world.


If our hearts are wobbly and we fear rejection, we cannot be truly ourselves or truly powerful in our relationships. One, in fact, always leads to the other; when we’re being fully ourselves, we are powerful. Not being ourselves usually means that we’re keeping certain seemingly weak or unattractive parts of ourselves hidden, and we’re distorting ourselves in the hope of being more loved and accepted by our partner.

>Unfortunately, the very things we do to try to gain greater acceptance are the very things that ultimately destroy the relationship because they are based on need, not love. The need for acceptance from others not only pushes people away but also prevents us from focussing on (or even becoming aware of) the power that comes from us expressing all that we are—the good, the bad and the ugly. Sharing our deepest wounds can create deep intimacy in any relationship because it requires authenticity, raw honesty and a willingness to really be seen. And there are few things more powerful than raw passion and honesty in humans. Expressing our fears and owning our insecurities and self-doubts is a demonstration of strength and strong self-worth.

When we come from the heart and are emotionally open (even if we still have unresolved issues), we tend to be much more magnetic and attractive to others. After all, it’s only when we fully show up that we can be fully seen and understood in all our wonderful complexity.

One of the benefits of being powerful in relationships (apart from having a much deeper, more loving and meaningful connection with your partner) is that there are numerous positive spinoffs that unfold, as a result, in all the other areas of your life. Relationships are where we get to practise being human and being uniquely ourselves; but the rewards come not just in the form of more love and affection, but also in the form of money, abundance, opportunities and fulfillment.

Relationships enable us to discover who we are, where we’re wobbly and what it takes for us to become strong and whole as individuals. Our partners reflect back to us those parts of ourselves that require our loving attention so that we can, with sufficient awareness and daring, overcome the resistance we have to being more fully ourselves and to being powerful where it counts the most—from our hearts.