POWER BLOCKERS
The Power of Consciousness and Responsibility—Identify Power Blockers
Full personal power requires increased consciousness and personal responsibility.
Any time we act from our mistaken or unconscious beliefs, indulge in stinking thinking or tactics, or get stuck in the drama triangle, we are unconsciously reacting to the world rather than consciously creating our lives. We are staying stuck in our mistaken beliefs and limiting patterns. Becoming more aware of our power blockers is an extremely important power skill. Increasing your awareness leads you to take responsibility to have your life and your world the way you want it. You begin to practice responsible thinking, communication, and action to make positive changes in your life.
You looked at your relationship with different aspects of power; explored your Rules, Myths, and Beliefs about power. You started to examine mistaken beliefs you formed from your childhood and early attachment experiences. These mistaken beliefs about you and the world limit you and your manifestation of personal power. Your mistaken beliefs spawn stinking thinking—excuses, rationalizations, blame, justifications, limiting thoughts, and reactive thinking—that limit your potential and keep you from manifesting your power fully and responsibly.
Mistaken beliefs also manifest in the power-zapping positions of the drama triangle—victim, persecutor, or rescuer—all of which keep you from manifesting full, responsible power. This week, you become more aware of the power blockers of the drama triangle, stinking thinking, and tactics—and begin to shift your thinking to set the stage for more personal power!
Expanding Your Range of Power
To increase your power, you need to expand your range of behavior. The Law of Requisite Variety says that the person with the most flexible range of responses can influence a situation the most. By learning about different types of power and practicing new power skills, you become more effective and more influential.
You’ll grow your awareness of limiting beliefs and judgments around power. You’ll practice asking for what you want, resisting what isn’t right for you, and navigating conflict and challenge with greater presence and skill.
Most of us have a limited concept of power, often seeing only physical strength or loudness as powerful. But power shows up in many forms—quiet presence, clear boundaries, emotional courage, and much more. This week, you’ll observe the many ways power is expressed, both in yourself and others.
Power is the ability to do work and work is any influence on the physical, emotional, mental, or other realms.
Developing and Expressing Personal Power
This lesson is about uncovering those old beliefs and testing new behaviors. You’ll do assignments that take you outside your comfort zone so you can grow into new ways of being. This process helps you strengthen your personal power as you evolve and become more of who you are meant to be.
You’ll strengthen your connection with your deeper desires, take action to meet them, and replace outdated beliefs with ones that empower you. You’ll build practical power skills and begin to reimagine the kind of person you want to become.
Power Alert!
Main Assignment
This week’s focus is on uncovering your core beliefs about power. You’ll reflect on your history, your early messages around power, and your current behaviors and judgments. This assignment has two parts:
Part 1: Examine Your Beliefs About Power
A. Reflect Deeply to Understand the Beliefs You’ve Developed Around Power
Set aside some quiet, uninterrupted time to complete the Power Assessment. Think carefully about your childhood, your early influences, and how you were parented. Reflect on the questions while considering your own inner beliefs, assumptions, and stories about power. Journal about what you’re discovering—what patterns, beliefs, and ways of thinking about power are coming into focus? This is your chance to better understand the mental and emotional lens through which you relate to power. (You’ll find the Power Assessment attached to this lesson, along with other relevant worksheets.)
B. Identify the Rules, Myths, and Beliefs You Live By
Use the Rules, Myths, and Beliefs worksheet to write down what you’ve learned or absorbed about power. Ask yourself:
What unspoken “rules” have I followed about power?
What beliefs or messages did I receive about power growing up?
What stories shaped how I think power works?
Record any insights, emotions, or realizations in your journal. This will help you track your growth and continue developing greater self-awareness.
C. Create a Visual Map of Your Beliefs
Using a creative format, make a visual representation of your core beliefs about power—especially any mistaken or limiting ones. Show how those beliefs influence your actions or inactions. Then add in the new empowering beliefs you want to build and how they might shift your life.
Very-Able Assignments
These Very-Able Assignments are designed to support you with your main assignment and/or to deepen the assignment.
Become More Aware of Your Current Relationship with Power
Continue the work you did on the Personal Power training by deepening your inquiry into your relationship with personal power. Use your observations of Requisite Variety to continue to discover your mistaken thoughts, rules, myths, and beliefs about power. Use the Rules, Myths, and Beliefs form to support you.
Deepen Your Inquiry
Keep using the Rules, Myths, and Beliefs form to surface unconscious ideas about power.
Identify Your Mistaken Thoughts and Beliefs about Power
Challenge Your Misconceptions: Look at your early associations—what kind of people seemed powerful to you? What did power mean to you then? What negative beliefs about power do you still carry?
Watch Movies and Notice Different Types of Power
Watch a movie this week and keep alert for the different types of power manifested in the movie. Record what you see and what plugs you in, what is comfortable, what bothers you, what is challenging, what you like, and what you don’t like.
One more thing!
Remember…
YOU.
ARE.
POWER.
Part 2: Observe Power in Action
As you go through the week, watch for different types of power in yourself and others. Pay attention to:
How people assert themselves or hold boundaries
What behaviors you find intimidating, inspiring, annoying, or admirable
What reactions and judgments come up in you
Reflect on your beliefs and update your worksheet and leadership journal.
Be aware of your own behavior and that of others—particularly how you think and feel about power. Think about all the different types of power: the existential/developmental perspective on power (consciousness, choice, internal locus of control, flow, aliveness, engaging, intent, truth), and the different poles of power: masculine-feminine, generative-reactive, affirming-disaffirming, assertive-passive, projecting- accepting, etc. Also, be aware of when you or others overuse a perceived strength as a type of power, like overusing intellectual, sexual, or physical power.
Look for examples of all kinds of power this week. Observe yourself this week and notice the different types of power you manifest and the ones you don’t utilize. Also, observe people who seem powerful to you. How are they powerful? What is it that they do, or how do they behave, or act, or “be” that seems powerful to you? What kind of power are they manifesting? What is the influence of their behavior? What kind of work gets done? How do you feel about them and the kind of power they use? What are your judgments of them—whether positive or negative?
Be aware of your feelings and reactions. For example, if feminine power makes your skin crawl or you are intimidated by aggressiveness, that is information about your relationship to that kind of power. It lets you know that you haven’t integrated that aspect of power, have disowned that part of your power, don’t value it, or aren’t at peace with it. Keep track of aspects of your own power, the power you observe in other people, their characteristics, and your judgments in your journal.
Identify as many different types of power as you can. Notice how you feel about the different aspects of power, the beliefs that they confirm or challenge. Pair your mistaken beliefs with real-world examples that challenge or reinforce them.
Your responses, judgments, and feelings will let you know more about your rules, myths, and beliefs around aspects of power.
Come to Peace with Power—Claim Your Yearning for Power and Influence
Claim your yearning to be powerful and to be a person of influence. Assert your “will to power,” the will to life, as described by Nietzsche. Claim both what feels to you to be a more shady reason for power as well as a higher motivation for power. Claim your hunger for power. Write it all down. Then acknowledge it by writing a declaration. Share this declaration with someone.
Have Empowering Conversations
Practice meaningful conversations that build connection and influence. Ask others what they want in life and share your own growth journey. Experiment with different forms of power in how you show up.
Track Your Progress and Celebrate Growth
Use the provided worksheets and journal prompts throughout the week. Look for opportunities to connect, influence, and expand your power range. Keep building your leadership journey—and have fun doing it!
My Rules, Myths, and Beliefs about Power
POWER ALERT!
Recognizing Different Types of Personal Power
My Matrix Map
Create a graphic representation of your matrix.
Journal
Journal your thoughts and opinions about your power and the impact of your history on your relationship with your power. Can you begin to see the underpinnings of your beliefs about power? Can you see how you were conditioned to relate to power?
Power Assessment II
This part of the survey addresses your training and conditioning about power. Take a few quiet moments and journal your responses to the following questions. Use each question as a reflection—don’t merely answer yes or no.
What messages did you receive about power from your family and community? What were you taught?
How were you treated when you were being powerful, expressing your wants, or exerting influence?
How were you treated when you were feeling intimidated, being a wimp unengaged, etc.?
How were you encouraged to express and experiment with power? How were you coached on how to handle difficult or challenging situations in powerful and effective ways?
Were you encouraged to express yourself in a powerful way, to feel satisfied in the interaction, and to learn from the situation?
Were you coached and encouraged to be powerful, to experiment with power, to take risks, to challenge others, and to express your deeper truths?
What was the norm in your family or community in regards to expressing power?
What kind of power was permitted in your family? What kind of power wasn’t permitted?
What did you learn about power from watching your parents?