When you think of an empowered person, who comes to mind?  For my part, my first thought is of someone who is witty, sharp, undeterred by criticism or others’ negativity.  Someone who will be able to jump in and pull another person out of any predicament they wandered in, willingly or blindly.  We can imagine them as some kind of modern-day super hero.  In truth, though, I know that’s not the case.  Even the most empowered among us is still human.  We cannot empower another against their will.  That kind of relationship dynamic has to be a collaboration and a choice.  It requires patience to coach the slow to learn and change, generosity to go out of one’s comfort zone to reach others where they are, and introspection and humility to keep that all-too-human tendency to slip into selfish, emotionally driven impulses.

To use David Emerald’s word in The Power of TED, the empowered person is a coach.  They lead by example, but won’t do for you what you can do for yourself.  They offer you the encouragement, the nudge and, when necessary, the means to start making those empowering choices.  They recognize that the choice to start remains with the one being coached, as does the responsibility to follow through and persevere.  They are, for their part, cheerleaders and role models.  Those who do too much for you are not empowering as they are implicitly telling you that you are helpless.

We are meant to be that coach for those around us: our family, our friends, our colleagues, you name it.  We may feel wounded or broken at times, and yet even in our brokenness, we find beauty and wisdom, pearls of compassion we would otherwise not have.  We will look at this further in the next post.

It’s one thing to coach someone needing and wanting help, but what about our persecutors (to use Karpman’s terms) or, as I like to call them, our Goliaths.  The old eye-for-an-eye adage might seem called for against those who would want to manipulate or bully us.  Perhaps indifference seems a more for fitting response.  In my opinion, the latter is closer to the truth, but still lacking.  To remain at the indifference stage seems more like seeing our Goliaths as something not worth our attention or something broken beyond repair.  There is a certain amount of indifference needed to deflect their attempts to manipulate or overpower us, but what about the individuals who engage in such behaviours?  How should we treat them?

To be truly empowered in our relationship with them, I think we need to shift from seeing our Goliaths as broken, evil people, to suffering souls seeking empowerment in the wrong way.  We need to change the relationship dynamic on our end, and call them out of their overpowering mindset.  Just as they are able to influence us, so can we influence them.  Though our ways are more subtle for lack of violence, they can be just as effective.

Instead of giving them the response they are looking for, if we set boundaries to protect ourselves and refuse to respond in kind to their tactics, we are already coaching them in the proper way to be empowered by our own example.  If we do it with grace and kindness, we are most likely to stump them as people in this role usually expect others to respond in kind rather than with compassion.  Drama inspires drama.  However, compassion and kindness can defuse many hostilities, but it takes an empowered person to do it in the face of the one being hostile to them.

Have you ever experienced that complete and utter feeling of hopelessness? Have you ever felt at odds or completely detached? Life can certainly leave us feeling an array of emotions with each negative encounter, loss, and challenge that we face. Sometimes, we may lack clarity and a comprehensive understanding of life itself. You may be even asking yourself: “What is the meaning of life?” and “Why do I feel so damn lonely in a world brimming with people?”

For the individual experiencing hopelessness, the onset maybe fleeting, or it may be a chronic issue that plagues the mind of the individual. You may have even experienced these feelings multiple times in the past. While hopelessness is not always comprised of doom and gloom, in many unfortunate cases, the doom and gloom are known to consume the person experiencing these profound feelings.

Hopelessness can appear in a variety of shades, lending many different perspectives on what it means to experience such a difficult time. Hopelessness is derived from our sense
of isolation, loneliness, and despair. It may be linked to a difficult situation, environment, or a particular set of events occurring in one’s life. Research has proven that many medications and our own mental health conditions can prove a catalyst for such times. Yet, not all experiencing hopelessness are facing an acute or chronic mental health condition, but rather, they may be facing a momentary setback that is causing them temporary distress, discouragement or dissatisfaction.

What is hopelessness? Hopelessness is that inability to find meaning, purpose or drive. No matter what you do, you are consumed by an unmistakable state of depression and despondency. You may even feel as though you no longer have a sense of meaning or significance in this world. Life and the experiences therein, may feel robotic and mechanically unsound. For many, it’s at this particular stage that you may have lost hope and a desire to live life.

We may feel alone, abandoned and completely isolated from the world. These raw emotions may stem from real life issues such as: the loss of a significant relationship, a chronic health condition, financial distress, monetary setbacks, global unrest, and the overall uncertainty about tomorrow. For many, life simply looses its luster.

This feeling of hopelessness begins to consume the very you, within you. Every minute may feel like an hour and every day may feel like an eternity. In the end, hopelessness is that feeling of separation and an inability to connect. To connect with life and to connect with others. During the pandemic, there were many who became chronically depressed, discouraged, and despondent. Life no longer had meaning or joy.

We often feel hopeless when life simply no longer adds up. When we lose that satisfaction of living life. In fact, you maybe incapable of pinpointing exactly what is missing, but there is something amiss about your void. The GOOD NEWS is, there is HOPE for your tomorrow. Life can once again have meaning, purpose, and be filled with a yearning to live. Your tomorrow does not have to be spent lying despondently in bed. Your life no longer has to feel bleak and without meaning. It’s definitely not easy when life presents you with such challenges. Whether these challenges are directly or indirectly
experienced, they can leave an individual with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness.

What can be done to improve my perspective and to eliminate my sense of hopelessness? My professional bias would be to recommend the advice of a trained professional, but I’d never deny that a trusted confidant and friend may prove affective.

Please remember that the feelings that you are experiencing are normal. Do not be at odds with your feelings or the need to acquire professional services. Consider using one or all of the following strategies, they may help you on your journey towards health:

• active breathing exercises: establish a daily routine of deep and conscious breathing
• guided meditation: consider reading, listening and practicing
• practice mindfulness: mindfulness is a cognitive skill of being conscious and completely aware of our thoughts, feelings, surroundings, and person
• affirmations: writing or reading daily affirmations
• journaling: consider a daily routine of journaling — be certain to write a few positive aspects along the way.
• self-awareness approaches: become intimately and cognitively aware of your feelings and emotions
• triggers: be certain to acknowledge your triggers as they are an essential part of the recovery process
• boundaries: healthy boundaries are an essential part of each and every relationship
• goal setting: setting small and achievable goals
• cognitive restructuring or reframing of events and situations occurring in your life
• daily walks, routines and physical exercise.

Naturally, feelings of hopelessness and despair can prove debilitating, but know that there is hope and that you can achieve a place of health and balance. Please understand that we have all had moments of discouragement, dissatisfaction, and disillusionment. Do not allow the circumstances of your day to define your meaning. Remember that such feelings are a normal aspect of life and there is nothing to fear. There are a number of therapeutic tools that can be acquired and they can help in your pursuit of happiness, balance and a more fulfilled life. Please note that trained mental professionals can help you to achieve balance, a renewed perspective, and to restore your hope.

“We’ve all had experience of dreading interactions with certain people.  Your cell phone rings and you release a deep sigh when you see the name pop up on the caller display.  You’re walking into the office and you see that coworker with the uncanny ability to get under your skin, so you feel like dashing into the nearest room or turning around on the spot and heading back home.  You need to tell your partner news you know won’t be well received and your head spins from explanations to potential outcomes, dread rapidly filling the pit of your stomach.

“Perhaps your experience is more dramatic than that.  Perhaps you deal with real-life bullies who undermine your self-confidence, isolate, or gaslight you.  Their very presence in the room is making you feel claustrophobic.  You feel tense and uneasy around them but you can’t quite put your finger on the reason.  These and the above are what I call Goliaths.” (beginning of the Introduction from Facing Goliath: Breaking the Bullying Cycle)

Sometimes our Goliaths are real and ruthless, sometimes they’re merely perceived.  Regardless, facing them is no easy feat.  You try to remain calm but deep down you feel a whirlwind of scenarios play out in your mind, your imagination fueled by primal emotions that fight for control.  Your heart rate responds in kind.

Goliaths present threats that trigger our survival instincts to fight or flee.  When neither option seems worth the risk, we freeze.  Think of it this way.  It’s like in the first Jurassic Park movie when they come face to face with the T-Rex who just broke out of its enclosure.  They freeze.  There’s no point trying to run for it, they won’t get far.  Fight it?  Yeah right!  So they wait until it gets distracted so they can leave.  Now thankfully we don’t come face to face with towering carnivorous dinosaurs, but our Goliaths are nonetheless intimidating.  Their voices get inside our head and back us into a corner mentally.  Then comes the tough decision: I fight (stand up to them), I flee (spend my time trying to avoid them), I freeze (take the abuse as if there was no other viable option), or I confront them.  Ideally, we would choose the latter.

Let’s not confuse confronting with fighting.  Fighting, in this case, refers to responding in kind.  Two flames don’t put out the fire, they make it bigger.  It’s counter-productive.  It ends with one Goliath standing over the wreckage of the other.  Confronting refers to the use of empowering strategies that keep the toxicity of our Goliath’s influence out of our lives and out of our heads. 

Like the image of David facing Goliath, we stick to those strategies that give us the mental upper hand.  In a contest of brute strength, David would have been crushed like a bug.  The use of his sling gave him the means to overcome Goliath before the latter could get close enough to do damage.  Obviously, I’m not suggesting violent means for handling our Goliaths.  In David’s case, his people were at war and he had no other options for handling the situation.  In our case, we need to neutralize the venom inside our Goliaths’ sting.  He will try to sting, but what is he going to do when he sees it has no effect?

The key to facing our Goliaths is to not let ourselves slip into the victim role.  Now you could tell me that it’s not like you have much choice if someone wants to victimize you and you would be right.  You don’t have much influence on what people choose to do.  You do, however, have all the power to decide if you’re going to play the victim or not.  The Victim, in the Drama Triangle sense, is the one who lives at the mercy of people, circumstances, and conditions, as though these are the cause of his woes and the source of his unhappiness.  This type of Victim has an approach of “it’s not my fault, it’s not my responsibility” to the whirlwind of bullying he feels he’s been swept up in.  He blames his Goliaths for his unhappiness and expects them or some Rescuer to fix the mess, instead of rising to the challenge himself.  As opposed to Victims, empowered individuals are Creators, to use David Emeralds’ terms, who will rise to the challenge.

One thing to keep in mind when considering our Goliaths is that we are teleological beings by nature.  We do things for a purpose.  Bullies or Goliaths do what they do to us for varying reasons, but mainly for control so they can avoid being hurt and victimized.  Problem is, their bullying actions gets them reactions that cause them to feel victimized, and so they repeat the same pattern to try to regain the upper ground and in the process continue to get the reactions, and so the cycle continues in a self-fueling loop.  Ironically, sometimes they enjoy that ongoing cycle because their actions cause predictability and thus gives them a sense of control.

So how do we step out of that loop?  In a nutshell, we mind our reactions to our Goliaths’ tactics so we don’t fall into the Dreaded Drama Triangle with them, an art that has to begin from within.  We set and maintain the necessary boundaries to stop them trespassing where they are not welcome.  We let go of all injustices suffered at their hands.  To learn more, you are welcome to read my book or buy me a coffee and I’ll tell you all about it.

We’ve all heard that life is tough.  People of every age and every creed can all agree on this one fact.  Life is fraught with challenges and let downs, sometimes taking the form of events, sometimes taking the form of people.  The good news is, they don’t determine what we will become or who we are.  This series of blog posts will focus on how to have truly empowering relationships through it all, rather than some whiny ode to why life sucks or why I’m not perfect.

The expression ‘No man is an island’ was coined by the English poet John Donne (1572-1631).  It is a belief he drew from his Christian faith, and one that is shared by Buddhism and other belief systems.  Its bare-boned meaning is that no one is self-sufficient, and so we need one another if we are to fully thrive to the fullness of our potential.  But what happens when there are those who should be part of that uplifting social network who get in the way of that fulfillment?  They single us out, isolate us, beat us down and suck the life-giving energy out of us.  What’s worse, sometimes we don’t recognize the unhealthy, disempowering dynamic until we start seeing the significant damage they leave in their wake.  Those relationships are what I call Goliaths.  To know more on that, you can check out my book “Facing Goliath: Breaking the Bullying Cycle”, available on Amazon Kindle.

The spectrum of empowering and disempowering relationships is wide.  Every relationship we have has its place somewhere on that spectrum, even the relationship we have with ourselves.  Ideally, we want to remain as close to empowering as we can.  The closer we get to the disempowering side, the more Goliaths we will meet.  Goliaths (in this case people) are individuals who try to empower themselves at our expense because they don’t know how to be truly empowered.  They seek to impose their ways and views for their selfish fulfillment.  Their tactics are based on fear and insecurity.  Though we should try to see the good in them and treat them according to their innate God-given dignity, we are under no obligation to keep them in our lives.  We do owe it to ourselves to establish and maintain boundaries that will keep them at a healthy distance physically, socially, and psychologically.

Our lives will flourish if we focus on building and maintaining empowering relationships in our lives.  Empowering relationships inspire you to greatness, lift you up when you’re down, catch you when you fall, tell you the truth in firm and gentle ways (even when it’s hard to hear).  Empowering relationships steer us away from the Dreaded Drama Triangle, towards what David Emerald calls The Empowerment Dynamic.  It is a dynamic in which every interaction seeks to empower us and others towards becoming the very best version of ourselves.

The most empowering relationship is the one that sees not only your strengths, but also the beauty in your scars.  It doesn’t judge you for that brokenness.  Rather, it sees those scars as a testimony to the resilience that carried you through the evils that inflicted them upon you.

The most empowering relationship sees your limits as an invitation to look after your well-being and, if in a position of authority, sees them as an opportunity to adapt their strategy to play to your strengths.  It may not be able to cater to every one of our needs, but it will present opportunities for us to heal and grow.

The most empowering relationship will always seek to inspire you to be the best version of yourself, helping you rise to greater heights, not in spite of past and present wounds, but because of them.

The following posts will look at different facets of empowering relationships in no specific order, like looking at the many facets of a diamond.  None can be without the others, and each brings unique beauty and integrity to the whole of the empowered person.  They will show not only what empowerment looks like, but also what it means for us as we strive to be empowered with ourselves and those who are part of our day-to-day life, whatever our vocation may be.