In this last post in the empowerment series, I think it is suitable to bring it all together.  What does it mean for us to face our Goliaths with courage, to respond with compassion, to see the beauty in brokenness, to let go of control, to be driven by love and passion, to master that empowered relationship dance, and to live drama-free?  Yes, it is to be empowered, but it is also part what makes us the best version of ourselves.  All these traits of empowerment are parts of a multi-faceted diamond that, combined, constitute the empowered individual who then becomes the very best version of him or herself.

Michelangelo once said: “In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.”

Reaching our full potential is just like this.  We have it all within us.  We simply need to focus on that full potential and chip away around it, like a sculptor with a chisel and a hammer, slowly freeing our empowered self from the debris and the confines of anxiety, superficiality, and pointless drama.  Where this analogy reaches its limit is that once a statue is uncovered, it remains there for all to see.  The best version of ourselves, however, will inevitably begin to disappear beneath accumulating debris if we stop working on living an empowered life.  It requires us to strive for it daily, and humbly accept that there will be ups and downs on the daily empowerment meter.

So what’s it all for?  What’s the purpose of empowerment?  To feel good?  To impress others?  By no means!  I will refer back to my quote from the first post in this series: ‘No man is an island’ (John Donne, 1572-1631).  We are meant to live in a society.  We need our fellow man to be able to live up to our full potential.  We need them to help us meet our needs where we are unable to ourselves, just as much as they need us to help them meet theirs.  Who we are and what we do has a ripple effect on everyone around us. 

We are like a drop of water that falls in the middle of a pond, becoming an epicenter from which ripples emanate.  Each ripple is a result of the choices we make, the words we speak, the actions we perform, be they empowering or disempowering.  Being the best version of ourselves will make us an epicenter of empowerment.  People around us will become more empowered, and they in turn will empower others through their empowering choices.

It is not uncommon to feel powerless to change the world.  After all, what can a single person do?  A lot, actually.  The grand and impressive changes take a long time to happen, some of which can take decades or centuries.  On a day-to-day basis, we can cause ripple effects of change in the world by being the best version of ourselves, that epicenter of empowerment, sending out waves that will slowly inspire people to live a more empowered lifestyle.

We could keep looking at what empowerment is and its promises, but the argument’s already been made.  We now have a choice before us that needs to be made today.  What can I do today to confront my Goliaths courageously?  What change can I make today to help me further in my pursuit of my life goals, even if it is difficult?  What can I do now that will help me master that intricate relationship dance, be it with friends or my relationship with my partner?  We have more opportunities than we can count, every day, to make empowering choices.  But start small. 

As author and speaker Mathew Kelly once wrote (I’m paraphrasing as I don’t remember exactly where I read that and therefore can’t quote it), it is better to take small steps and succeed in making the changes we need to make, than to take ones that are too big and stumble.  Stumbling is part of our nature.  We are fallible.  Still, stumbling is discouraging, and we are more likely to persevere when we see success, however small.  The important thing here is to not settle for anything that keeps us short of the best version of ourselves.  Take small steps if you must, but keep moving forward.  Like in the story of the turtle and the hare, just because we move slowly doesn’t mean we can’t finish the race.  We tend to resist change in general, but we resist small changes less.

If you feel you need to be more active, start taking short walks every day.  This one person keeps getting you on the defensive, choose to not respond or react today, but merely to observe.  Your relationship with your partner has been fraught with tension lately, start with asking for a hug or simply listen attentively to what they have to say.  Start small.  It will take many small steps to conquer that mountain we call our empowered self, but we can conquer it.

One of the first questions I ask a client when we start therapy is ‘what brings you in today’. Sometimes the client is exactly right about what they are seeking help with, other times, this isn’t the case. This has led me to be cautious when formulating my case conceptualizations and reminds me that I need to be fluid when working with a client because therapy is a process. I am always asking myself if we are focusing on the right things in therapy sessions and it isn’t always an easy question to answer.

An example that frequently seems to happen is that a client will indicate that they have past trauma that they need to work on. We begin therapy, start working on these past traumas and they may see a small benefit from that, but overall distress levels don’t seem to materially change for them. In most cases I eventually feel the need to have a frank conversation about whether our therapy sessions are actually helping. It’s easy to make adjustments when the client the client tells you something isn’t working (and I like using the session rating scale after each session to stay on top of this) but it can be frustrating when clients tell you the sessions are definitely helping, but the amount of change in overall distress remains limited. This can test our patience as therapists and lead us to question our own effectiveness.

The conversation about the helpfulness of therapy often leads to a bit of reflection on the client’s part and they often come back and want to talk about something else, something they only mentioned in passing previously, or vaguely alluded to as ‘there’s something else’, but I’m not ready to talk about it yet. Sometimes a completely new piece of the puzzle that was never previously even hinted at emerges. It’s important to remember that timing plays a key role here; we need to develop a strong trusting relationship first, and that can happen by working on things that don’t necessarily lead to profound and immediate changes in our client’s distress levels.

During my practicum, I was fortunate enough to work with a very special client that really drove this all home for me. We spent a great deal of time focusing on past traumas, doing experiential work, and they kept telling me that it was all very helpful, and we developed a great therapeutic relationship. At the time, I felt frustrated by the ‘lack of progress’ we were making; we had had 10 sessions, and I didn’t feel like I had helped this client at all other than giving them short reprieves from their stress through our experiential relaxation work. I kept blaming myself and didn’t believe that I was helping anything. I decided to have a conversation with my client about whether our therapy sessions were actually helpful, why the distress levels didn’t seem to be decreasing significantly, and if we were actually focusing on the right things. This conversation went well, the client reassured me that they found the work extremely helpful, that we were working on important things but that there

was something else that we hadn’t yet focused on. This led us to discuss another trauma that had only been mentioned in passing during the first session and didn’t appear to be a key component at the time. We shifted focus and started working on that, it was incredibly painful for the client to discuss. I can appreciate why it didn’t come up earlier – there was so much unprocessed emotion attached to this that there is no way we could have done this work earlier in the process, and even with the strong therapeutic relationship we had built in over 2 months of working together weekly, it was still immensely difficult to talk about for the client. What happened next was nothing short of amazing, I saw a profound decrease in the client’s distress levels and improvements in many areas in their life. They reported a great deal of lowered distress despite extremely difficult new external factors negatively affecting them.

For some clients a strong therapeutic relationship and sense of safety can happen after 5-6 sessions, for other clients it takes much longer. As therapists, we have to keep in mind that the strong relationships we build with clients are what empower them to be able to share things that are deeply emotional and painful which they have been holding onto or compartmentalizing. I found it frustrating to have clients tell me that the therapy sessions were helping, but not see any reduction in their overall distress levels. What I was forgetting was that therapy is a process that takes time – we are building relationships, and our clients aren’t always ready to talk about what’s really bothering them the most or might not even be aware of what it is that’s driving their distress. What I’ve learned is that it’s important to have patience with our clients, but even more important to have patience with ourselves and the process so that we can focus on building the strong relationships which are the bridges that help our clients move to a better state of mental health.

https://bestchoicecounselling.com/

Drama promises freedom and empowerment but never delivers.  It is a never-ending whirlwind of arguments and emotional beatings that drain you of all life-giving energy.  It is like being in an escape room with unclear or misleading clues that lead constantly to drama dead-ends. 

We speak harsh or anger-inspired words thinking we will finally be heard, only to have the other person stonewall us or respond in kind.  We put the blame of our pain on others, perhaps demanding that someone fix the situation they caused us, but we never truly end up free from the aftermath of the drama.  We reach out to those who hurt us and try to reason with them, hoping for amendment or closure, only to end up on the receiving end of their aggression again.

Drama-filled relationships are disempowering relationships.  So how do we do it?  How do we break away from the drama?  It’s actually quite simple.  You walk away from it.  Responding to drama with drama is no better than fighting fire with fire.  It makes it grow.  When you walk away from it, you let it burn itself out.  Most of us don’t like the drama and we would love to put a quick end to it, but throwing ourselves into it to try to stop it is no different than standing in front of a moving bus.  We won’t stop it.  We will end up getting hurt and prolonging that dreaded drama.  We need to step off its path of destruction.

Let’s call the following the three steps of empowerment.  This doesn’t come from any book or article I’ve read, so feel free to disagree with me.

First, walk away.  Walking away from drama means to choose to not be in the victim role, even when being victimized.  It’s like choosing to be an observant rather than a participant.  If drama knocks on our door, we choose not to engage in the drama.  Can anything be worth taking the emotional beating that comes from drama?  In my opinion, it’s not worth it.  Drama is nothing but a source of interpersonal dysfunction.

Second, if we find ourselves sucked into drama, which happens to the best of us, we take the time to look within at the contribution we had in it, however small, and try to make amends if possible.  How could we have done things differently to avoid it?  There can be many reasons why we end up sucked into drama, but it’s not worth blaming someone for our reaction or our choice.  That’s a victim stance.  Blaming is to deny our own role in a situation or a problem, and by extension we become blind to the solution, or at least the aid, we can bring to it.

It requires humility and discipline to own up to our contribution to a problem, especially if we were perhaps not the initial instigators.  Once we understand what our contribution was, it’s important to make some kind of amends, be it as simple as an apology for our part in the problem.  Just be wary of taking responsibility for another’s part.  We’re not doing them any favors if we don’t let them take responsibility for their role in the drama.  If anything, taking undue responsibility will only reinforce the drama.  If we truly can’t think of any way we may have even inadvertently contributed to the issue, then perhaps there is some way we can defuse the situation.

And third, be forward-focused.  Keep your eyes on your goals and continue to work towards them.  Drama is myopic.  It keeps us in survival mode, fighting and fleeing perceived threats, thus drawing our focus towards our survival needs and away from our empowerment goals.  In order to thrive, we need to move away from just trying to survive.

So how do I know that I am not making the problem worse?  The pivotal point between being driven towards drama or away from it lies in whether we are in the Creator stance or the Victim stance, as David Emerald claims in The Power of TED.

Victims are short-sighted, focusing on immediate relief of the anxiety, but making choices that inevitably prolong and worsen the drama in the long run.  Anxiety is a survival state best suited to preserve and promote our life, but to live under its shadow long term like the Victim, it is crippling and disempowering.

The empowered person, the Creator, on the other hand, is composed, disciplined, aiming for the long run, striving to get things done well but not overly perfection driven.  Creators focus their energy where it is meaningful, kicking to the curb bad habits that get in the way of their empowering goals.  They see setbacks and challenges as opportunities to grow, unlike Victims who will see them as roadblocks that are keeping them from their own fulfillment.

Let’s remember that whenever we feel the relentless pull of drama, we have a choice to make.  We can be the Victim who will fight drama with drama, or we can be the Creator who will leave it behind, leading the way towards an empowered lifestyle and in doing so inspiring others to do the same.

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.