Something I need to say about power.
One of the most important and easily understood things I ever learned in my training as a therapist is that people have basically two views of what power means, and it is deeply tied to their own sense of security and faith in themselves and others.
The first is the kind of power that lets you keep people under your thumb. You hurt them if you don’t get what you need, and what you need is constant reassurance that you are not only good but better than others. You have to be at the top of a hierarchy, real or fantasied. Your world view is that life is a pyramid scheme and if you aren’t at the top, at any cost, you are nothing.
The second is power in the way a battery has power. You draw it from association with people around you, relationships energize you, and you overflow to give it to others. You know you have power because you see it reflected in what you can do with and for those around you, and you take great pleasure in having the ability to help others have power too.
As I see this nightmare of an administration beat and assault women, diminish and harass LGBTQ citizens, threaten unstable dictators, demand shows of military “power,” drive out people who they deem lesser, deny food and medicine to children, fetishize guns and the ability to kill, worship money, use authoritarian religion, and feed a host of other insecure, unfulfillable power needs I pray we who believe power means having enough and some to spare, even in small kindnesses and support for those who share the concept that we rise together will not let ourselves be kept under the thumbs of rageful, insecure, power-starved tyrants.
Thanks. I just needed to say that.
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