No One Can Say....

... that I was among the countless who disown their personal power. In order to do that - disown it, abdicate responsibility, turn over accountability - a person has to have sensed ownership in the first place.

The thought that I might have any sort of personal power never occurred to me.  Growing up, I didn't see it modeled around me, and certainly not a single soul in my family made reference to such a possibility - not in word, not in deed.  

Which is so totally weird, because by nature, I was totally comfortable with having personal power, a sense of accountability & responsibility to others (just not to myself).  

Dad understood personal power & individual responsibility – he held me, even at a young age, accountable for what I said.  Even as a kid having to deal with the bitter fruits of rashly spoken words, I respected that in him & appreciated the life lesson it taught me.

I might never know if it that sort of lesson was similarly appreciated by my siblings.  My experience of them has always been of people who forget anything that makes them uncomfy or might put them at any sort of disadvantage.  Poof!  It’s gone, accepted by the majority as never spoken.

That drove me nuts, since it modeled the opposite of what I valued.  Sounds all puffed up & “Aren’t I swell,” but the reality is that I always had a sense in the back of my mind that we are each meant to hold ourselves accountable for personal actions.  For me, that meant talking with people directly about situations or problems.

Problem is, my sibs & Mom (Dad died when I was 21) communicate through triangulation.  Hey, it’s a valid way of communicating, but I could never get the hang of it.  To me, for Person A  to expect/allow/give permission for Person C to tell Person B how they (Person A) are feeling or what they want is a personal abdication of power. Sheez!  

For their part, my sibs have made no secret about how insufferable they find their baby sister.  My brother is reported as having told someone that he & my older sister became closer friends when they discovered that neither liked me!  And while one s-i-l had a pretty clear view of my family dynamics, my other one found me insufferably rude at 21 years old, at 45 considered me the most psychotic person she’d experience – who knows how she feels about me at 61! 

But I do get it – finally.  I take after Dad, who was generally direct & open with his opinions & what he valued.  Whereas my sibs communicate via triangulation, Dad was never one to shilly-shally around – he was as direct as they come.  He knew about personal power, he accepted it in himself & respected it in others.  He held himself accountable for his actions, and expected others to do the same.  I am my father’s daughter. 

Mind you, it took until my middish twenties for me to stop dancing the triangulation two-step (and, too often, two-faced).  It took recognizing – for the first time! - a strange disowned-power pattern in my Mom.

Many's the time, over the years, Mom would take me into her confidence, grousing & grumping about stuff that bothered her about my sister.  Thinking she was telling me so that I’d relay the info to my sister, off I would go to tell all.  Of course, when my understandably upset sister confronted Mom, I’d be stunned to hear, “I have no idea what you're talking about."  It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out I was being used as an emotional whipping boy.  Finally, around 25, I got up the courage to say, as Mom started to stress out to me over my sister, "That's something you have to discuss with her," and left the room.  (Did she?  Ever?)  

I never experienced anyone in my family using what I might have recognized as personal power.  But that was then, this is now.

I am 61 years old and proud to say that I am, by nature, comfortable with the personal power God gave me.  Downright wildly ecstatic about it!  It’s not easy – it’s still foreign to me, still a struggle to boldly  embrace it.  Hey, it was only last year that I realized that my inner core was woefully squishy.  I dedicated myself to stripping down & rebuilding my internal structure.  

The foundation was finished around fall – marked by my new-found ability to consciously develop, use & reuse helpful patterns.   Now, I am proud to announce that the rivets are being driven into the superstructure - each rivet being some aspect of my personal power, which is necessary to bind the girders together.  

I didn't grow up in a family that modeled personal power, at least not the way I define it.  I never had any reason to think such a thing – the antithesis of ignoring & excusing - existed.  Now, I do.  Now, I can see all the times through the years that I used it – a lot of good was done.  My sanity was saved.  

Thank you, oh Great Power That Fills All, for your patience.  And I'll gladly take that gift you give us all of personal power, letting it guide me into a life of never-ending gratitude.  

It won't be easy.  Consciously using my personal power is brand new to me, foreign.  There will be triumphs & not-so-great follow throughs (still didn't submit my billable hours!) & even set backs.  But good things come to those who persist & I promise that I will!   ... that I was among the countless who disown their personal power. In order to do that - disown it, abdicate responsibility, turn over accountability - a person has to have sensed ownership in the first place.

The thought that I might have any sort of personal power never occurred to me.  Growing up, I didn't see it modeled around me, and certainly not a single soul in my family made reference to such a possibility - not in word, not in deed.  

Which is so totally weird, because by nature, I was totally comfortable with having personal power, a sense of accountability & responsibility to others (just not to myself).  

Dad understood personal power & individual responsibility – he held me, even at a young age, accountable for what I said.  Even as a kid having to deal with the bitter fruits of rashly spoken words, I respected that in him & appreciated the life lesson it taught me.

I might never know if it that sort of lesson was similarly appreciated by my siblings.  My experience of them has always been of people who forget anything that makes them uncomfy or might put them at any sort of disadvantage.  Poof!  It’s gone, accepted by the majority as never spoken.

That drove me nuts, since it modeled the opposite of what I valued.  Sounds all puffed up & “Aren’t I swell,” but the reality is that I always had a sense in the back of my mind that we are each meant to hold ourselves accountable for personal actions.  For me, that meant talking with people directly about situations or problems.

Problem is, my sibs & Mom (Dad died when I was 21) communicate through triangulation.  Hey, it’s a valid way of communicating, but I could never get the hang of it.  To me, for Person A  to expect/allow/give permission for Person C to tell Person B how they (Person A) are feeling or what they want is a personal abdication of power. Sheez!  

For their part, my sibs have made no secret about how insufferable they find their baby sister.  My brother is reported as having told someone that he & my older sister became closer friends when they discovered that neither liked me!  And while one s-i-l had a pretty clear view of my family dynamics, my other one found me insufferably rude at 21 years old, at 45 considered me the most psychotic person she’d experience – who knows how she feels about me at 61! 

But I do get it – finally.  I take after Dad, who was generally direct & open with his opinions & what he valued.  Whereas my sibs communicate via triangulation, Dad was never one to shilly-shally around – he was as direct as they come.  He knew about personal power, he accepted it in himself & respected it in others.  He held himself accountable for his actions, and expected others to do the same.  I am my father’s daughter. 

Mind you, it took until my middish twenties for me to stop dancing the triangulation two-step (and, too often, two-faced).  It took recognizing – for the first time! - a strange disowned-power pattern in my Mom.

Many's the time, over the years, Mom would take me into her confidence, grousing & grumping about stuff that bothered her about my sister.  Thinking she was telling me so that I’d relay the info to my sister, off I would go to tell all.  Of course, when my understandably upset sister confronted Mom, I’d be stunned to hear, “I have no idea what you're talking about."  It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out I was being used as an emotional whipping boy.  Finally, around 25, I got up the courage to say, as Mom started to stress out to me over my sister, "That's something you have to discuss with her," and left the room.  (Did she?  Ever?)  

I never experienced anyone in my family using what I might have recognized as personal power.  But that was then, this is now.

I am 61 years old and proud to say that I am, by nature, comfortable with the personal power God gave me.  Downright wildly ecstatic about it!  It’s not easy – it’s still foreign to me, still a struggle to boldly  embrace it.  Hey, it was only last year that I realized that my inner core was woefully squishy.  I dedicated myself to stripping down & rebuilding my internal structure.  

The foundation was finished around fall – marked by my new-found ability to consciously develop, use & reuse helpful patterns.   Now, I am proud to announce that the rivets are being driven into the superstructure - each rivet being some aspect of my personal power, which is necessary to bind the girders together.  

I didn't grow up in a family that modeled personal power, at least not the way I define it.  I never had any reason to think such a thing – the antithesis of ignoring & excusing - existed.  Now, I do.  Now, I can see all the times through the years that I used it – a lot of good was done.  My sanity was saved.  

Thank you, oh Great Power That Fills All, for your patience.  And I'll gladly take that gift you give us all of personal power, letting it guide me into a life of never-ending gratitude.  

It won't be easy.  Consciously using my personal power is brand new to me, foreign.  There will be triumphs & not-so-great follow throughs (still didn't submit my billable hours!) & even set backs.  But good things come to those who persist & I promise that I will!