The Dynamism of our Personal Power
Power is dynamic. At any given time, we’re experiencing being either ‘one up’ or ‘one down’. We are shifting between these polarities and often occupy them both at the same time. Power’s far from static. It continually brings energy, synergy, or it can constrain and dissolve.
Power and it’s close cousin, privilege, are at the root of the ongoing debate on how to make our cultural norms, organizational structures, governments, and countries more inclusive.
As leaders, we’re expected to model and share power responsibly; to work with our power and privilege consciously.
In positions of power, and a host of intersecting privileges (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, education etc.) how can you become more conscious moment to moment of how your power and privilege can liberate or oppress?
How can you liberate the ways you interact, connect, and work across boundaries of difference?
I know, I know you might be thinking this is NOT an easy subject for a blog- but one that we all grapple with. So it’s worth sticking with me here….I promise 🙂
What it means to be an Ally
I first heard the term “ally” when I was helping the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network, Vancouver with some grant writing back in the early 2000s. It was just before the horrific Robert Pickton case broke in Canada- the tipping point of realization to the extent of violence against Indigenous women and girls.
It’s been almost two years since Canada’s first National Inquiry began on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA peoples.
A few months back the commissioners released their final report, with blunt force. The ultimate finding of genocide, coupled with clear and salient legal imperatives, known as the Calls to Justice, force even the most ignorant among non-Indigenous peoples to wake up.
These Calls to Justice extend to everyday people like me.
Non-indigenous leaders and entrepreneurs, like me.
Mothers, aunties, sisters, and friends, like me.
Northern citizens living on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dun First Nation and the Ta’an Kwatchan people, like me.
Eaters of wild harvest, like me.
People with intersecting privileges and power, like me.
A call to wholeness
The final report yields the weight and lightness of medicine.
It sees the hope and rage of generations living at the crossroads of European colonization. It sees the vulnerable testimonies and stories of our friends and neighbours who miss their mom, partner, grandmother, auntie, sister or friend. It sees dignity surviving despite rape, confinement, isolation, and forced denial of language and culture through residential schools, the 60s scoop, or the ongoing child welfare systems.
The findings of genocide are the raw truth that we’re all waking up to.
While its no surprise, I’m living the question more than ever: how do I use my privilege and power consciously?
How do we, as leaders, act not from guilt or shame, but from an emerging call to wholeness for ourselves, our communities and country?
Start with the checklist, and then go beyond
The MMIWG Final Report encourages non-Indigenous peoples to great resources with ten or more ways to be a responsible ally.
The underlying principle in all of them is this: as settlers take a step back, educate yourself, and let Indigenous people lead their own roads to self-determination, cultural expression and revitalization in service to the needs of their communities.
And if enough of us do, then we can help support Indigenous people to “change the story” as a few visionary, matriarchal Indigenous women and Elders shared with me recently.
It’s not just WHAT you do
Consciously working with power and privilege is not just what you do.
I could rely on my own checklist: did I show up for that protest or community meeting? Did I learn how to say valued words in my Indigenous friends’ languages? Did I read about Residential Schools and the systematic erasure of Indigenous people’s culture and power?
Being an ally are all of these things. But it goes deeper….
Did I recognize when I was ‘one up’ in power?
Did I notice how when I spoke, no-one else did?
Was I attentive to the body language in the meeting, after I framed a topic insensitively?
Do I take responsibility and openly acknowledge the privilege I have, and the impact my identity/experiences have on others with less?
Being an ally is all of this and more.
Moment to Moment Self-Awareness
Conscious awareness of power and privilege begins on a deeper level.
It requires self-awareness and self-reflection in the micro-moments of each day. With these, I am able to embrace my experience- as it comes- the intricate meanderings of emotion and meaning. This includes my deep pain and ecstatic joy, and everything in between.
To me, being conscious of my power and privilege is part of the dynamic unfolding of growing up and becoming whole.
Becoming whole, means that I listen to the beckoning of the eyes of the heart, moment to moment.
I’m invited to shift from cognitive framing and cultural assumptions, to the spaciousness of meeting another: center to center.
Working with your power without shame
Co-creating new cultural norms, organizations, governance models, and ways of working within teams across difference- is the new world of collaboration and innovation.
Shame and fear keep us from authentically breaking down the silos and boundaries that keep us separate from departments, units, to our identities.
Yes, there are countless instances where I have fallen down, been silent or not present. When I’ve used my power to get something I’ve wanted. Where I’ve offended another or worse offended and discriminated.
Sometimes I’ve never realized it. Other times, I’ve realized it and felt shame so powerfully it felt like the wind was knocked out of me.
Collectively, we don’t need more shame or fear.
We need to uncouple privilege from shame, acknowledging both open-heartedly. Because if we don’t- there’s no progressing to true decolonization, reconciliation and partnerships anew.
This kind of diligent witnessing, require the developmental capacity of self-awareness and compassion.
Self-awareness and learning together
But the checklists to being responsible allies, and the depth of self-awareness + compassion must also include the collective.
What I mean by this is the co-creative journey of re-inventing organizations, governance models, and team-work.
Accessing deeper levels of listening: made possible through generative and experiential learning is one of the essential ways forward. In the context of decolonization, the Blanket Exercise, is one of the best examples. It creates a raw, honest and safe place to realize your inherited privilege and power (as a non-Indigenous person) and activates empathy and understanding from Indigenous perspectives (noting of course, there is not just one!).
We are always either ‘one up’ or ‘one down’. The dynamism of power will never leave us. Being a leader with the developmental capacity of self-awareness and self-reflection supports us to consciously attend to our power and privilege in ways that elevate, not oppress.
This means showing up- over and over with a willingness to make mistakes, to ask when you don’t know, and to see through the eyes of the heart.
xo,
Jennifer
