Know Your Power
How empowered are you in your relationships? Have you stopped to notice where you might be disempowered... or too empowered? In this episode, Libby talks about power dynamics and how important it is to name them if you want to have relationally-empowered partnerships.
Transcript
Today. I want to talk to you about power, as I've said before on this podcast in a lot of different ways. I think a lot of challenging situations in polyamory have to do with the distribution of, and intentional and unintentional use of power in relationships. And I want to say, we're often not aware as a culture of how we use and operate power and the model of how to use power and how to operate relationships, to get what you want. Isn't so great. Like our culture is really a culture of power over of dominion. Like we're raised in an, in a society that has this mentality, that we are to use our power, to get what we want. That we are to use things like promises of reward, threats of punishment, coercion, and even violence to get people, to do what we want them to do.
And most of us don't wanna use those kind of things in our relationships. But the problem is that even if we don't wanna use power in this way, power dynamics exist. And really our culture is designed to let us use our power dynamics to our advantage and the cultural experience of power with all of the violence and coercion and punishment and reward stuff just also exists in our psyche and in our bodies. And all of us come to the table in our relationships with that power experience in us. Now some of us come to a relationship feeling very empowered. In fact, sometimes people can show up to a relationship being too empowered. Now on the healthy side of empowerment is, you know, being willing to go for what we want being willing to speak up for ourselves and not being willing to self-sacrifice, but on the dark side of empowerment can be lacking compassion and empathy for people who are less empowered than us, not being attentive to the ways in which we have power over other people, not being good listeners, being overly individualistic, think like someone who's willing to pull into the traffic lane that is being blocked off for construction, that you can see the sign for it, but they pull into that lane anyway, to zip around everyone who is, you know, creating this long line of cars.
And then you dart into that long line of cars at the last moment to get ahead of everybody else. That might be someone who's too empowered. Now, some of us are, are very disempowered to the point of self abandonment or self betrayal. Now there's a certain amount of like non empowerment that can be healthy. It can be good sometimes to put others first, when it's called for it's important to be flexible and willing to compromise and bend. It's important to show up and follow through on your commitments, even when you don't feel like it and pausing to read the room before going for what you want. The dark side though, of disempowerment is erasing yourself. Betraying your own needs for the sake of someone else's comfort, perpetually care, taking or walking on eggshells, overly empathizing with someone else, to the point of letting them take advantage of you or abuse you or pushing yourself perpetually beyond your own capacity.
Never speaking up for yourself, being a perpetual martyr. My sample here is someone who's been invited to a dinner party, but they have several food allergies or some dietary restrictions. And rather than tell the host about it, they keep it to themselves and just try to pick their way around the food as best they can, because they don't want to be a bother to anybody. So how empowered we feel in our lives can also feel very different than how empowered we feel in our intimate relationships. I actually know people who are like real go-getters in their working lives, who struggle to feel empowered with their partners. A lot of our feelings of empowerment are rooted in our feelings of self-worth and value, which are often a result of how we grew up and the messages we got about those things from our family of origin.
And then you also mix in how our culture teaches us to relate to power and what's important and what's valid and how we value people as a culture in general, and the way Western colonialists, white supremacists, settler, capitalist culture, determines who matters and why, and who deserves attention and care and validity and who doesn't is kind of really F*ck up. What I'm passionate about is the idea that in relationship, everyone matters and everyone is worthy and enough exactly as they are, but that's kind of the opposite of what a lot of us learn. And so if we don't actively push back against it, we can have some really big blind spots. If we are not embodying the idea that we and everyone else around us is worthy exactly as they are with exactly what they bring to the table and that everyone and their needs matter.
Then we are likely either being overly empowered or overly disempowered. And in that state, even if that's not how we wanna be power can do harm within our relationships. Power is at the root of why couple's privilege can be so harmful to polyamorous dynamics. Like there's inherent power in a more established relationship. There's inherent power in being recognized as the couple there's inherent power. If there are other aspects of entanglement that make it harder for the established couple to separate, if that needed to happen, the power that the established couple has is unavoidable. And the disempowerment that can show up if another partner comes in, who is less established is also unavoidable, but I hope you can also see that there are so many other ways power can show up and cause harm to you or the people that you love without you even wanting it to.
And I'm just gonna throw out some examples. Now these are just made up examples, but they're all really possible. So I'm gonna create this first fictitious couple Jordan and Chrissy. So Jordan works at a local community, nonprofit that provides social services to trans youth, and they get paid barely more than minimum wage for the hours they work. And since they had to break ties with their family of origin, for their own mental health and wellbeing, they had to finance their own college education and have hefty student loan payments. Chrisy who they're in a relationship with in a committed long term relationship with Chrissy. Meanwhile works at a successful startup where she makes far above the average income for where she lives. She also went to an elite private school and college, both paid for her parents and she's just purchased her own home. And she's invited Jordan to live with her and Jordan.
Isn't so sure because of the power dynamics. So then there's Carson and Jade. Carson is brand new to polyamory has only been doing it for a little while and he's just started hanging out at the look, go polyamory munch, and has just started to make friends. And that is where he met Jade and they have been dating for a few months. Now, Jade runs the munch and also runs several other local polyamory events. And their private parties at their home are really popular among the community and even have a makeshift dungeon in their basement. And Carson just feels so lucky to be in a relationship with Jade. There's a power dynamic there though, right? So then there's also Marla and Luca. So Marla is able bodied and has two other partners. Whereas Luca has just Marla and also Luca has some mobility challenges. They sometimes require a scooter to get around and they also sometimes have high pain or low energy days that prevent them from getting out of the house.
And they really rely on Marla and also close friends of theirs to meet some of their care needs. Now, Marla is active and spontaneous and often plans activities with her other partners at short notice, and Luca, isn't always able to access those activities, which can leave them feeling sidelined in the relationship. Now I could go on, but I hope you can see that there are many ways that power can exist in relationships and end up elevating some people over others just by the circumstances between those two people and the differences there. Now, one thing that is at the heart of my work is that no matter what type of relational arrangement you decide to create with other humans, I want it to be built on power with rather than power over. Interestingly, right now there's actually a huge movement among parents to do this kind of same thing with their children in the conscious and gentle parenting communities.
And I'm really excited about it. I really think that, that this kind of relating whether it be parent, child or adult adult, is going to be a huge part of dismantling the systems of power that exists within families, within relationships and really within our society. When we are able to fuse power are with the people we love and empower everyone in the relational ecosystem, even the children in our lives, we are living into the value that everyone is worthy of respect and that everyone's needs matter. So how do you begin to shift the power dynamics in your relationships? So I think one of the important steps is to just start naming how power shows up in your life and in your relationships. One thing to do is to maybe get clear on extrinsic sources of power that you have available to you. What are your privileges?
What is your access resources like wealth and community? What are also the feelings of empowerment that you were given from your family of origin and how are they working on you and then list out your relationships and take a look at how the power dynamics operate within them? Where do you feel empowerment? And like you have agency, where do you feel like you have significant influence on other people? Where do you feel like maybe have too much power? Is there anyone in your life that tends to show up more passively or generally goes along with whatever you want? And are there maybe some reasons for that who does a lot of the initiating of spending time together? And then where might you feel disempowered or unable to influence things to the degree you would like with the people you hear about how safe do you feel speaking up to the different people in your life about something that you need that might rock the boat.
Is there anyone you're close to who has significant power or you, or how your life goes like, is it there someone who has an impact on whether you have housing or not, whether you have access to finances or not, or access to social connections, et cetera, what types of extrinsic power did the people in your life have access to that can or do affect your access to those things or how you relate to them? Taking an honest look at the types of power that you have, or that others have. And the potential impact of that power can really help you understand other power dynamics are out of balance and not relational, and can give you a direction to go, to bring the power to a more equitable level where you can truly be mutually relationally empowered. And here's where I gotta say this last thing, which is sometimes when you are the one who's too empowered, the answer isn't to bring everyone up to your level.
Sometimes that's not even possible, let alone desirable. Sometimes the answer is that you need to move down a peg. You may not wanna hear this,but if you are in a relationship with someone who is struggling with disempowerment, whether it is structural disempowerment or relational disempowerment, and you are just sitting up on your high horse, waiting for them to come and meet you there, ignoring all of the things that may be disempowering them in, including things that you might be covertly or overtly doing to disempower them. That's a little bit like saying, Hey, come up to where I am while you have your foot on their neck, or Hey, run as fast as I'm running, but you have to carry around a backpack full of bricks. And I don't like, that's what you're saying. And you know what I've seen in the situations where the person really does eventually try to rise up and meet the empowered person is that it can end up being fueled by a fair amount of righteous anger instead of love and mutual respect.
And that process can maybe end up feeling like a need to yank your foot off their neck, or to take a bunch of bricks outta their backpack and throw them at you, which might not feel so loving, but might end up being what's necessary for them to stick up for themselves. Finally, since you are not trying to meet them there, like what I would see instead is to notice, Hey, I can see the ways in which I'm holding you down. Let me move those out of the way or wow. I can see that you a whole bunch of bricks in your backpack that you're carrying, that I don't have to carry. Maybe I could help you with that and carry some for you by doing that, you are equalizing the power and creating mutuality within the relationship. And sometimes that is the way you create equity.
That sometimes is the way that you create health and balance in these power dynamics is by fusing the power that you have with the other person in the relationship. Like, as in my previous examples, like let's take Jordan and Chrissy again. So they have a clear income disparity. They have a clear wealth disparity and a clear support network disparity, right? And also there's the asset of the home that Chrisy wants Jordan to move in with here into but then Jordan would in, and it wouldn't be Jordan's house. And Jordan wouldn't necessarily have the financial capacity to contribute equally to the home. And so they may just really not feel empowered to fully live into that space. So what are some things that Chrissy could do to help empower Jordan? Well, in this case, it might be some like financial and legal documents, some agreements that they make together to protect Jordan's right to be in that space to maybe even give Jordan a portion of ownership over the house.
Maybe whatever contributions that Jordan makes to the rent are also, you know, recorded as contributions to equity in the home. And then when, when, and if the home is ever sold, even if Jordan moves out, like they have,a right to some of the proceeds of the sale, like those are some examples of how Jordan might feel empowered financially. Maybe also you might make an agreement about how financial contributions work in the, how household and maybe taking into account the clear advantages that Chrissy has been given that she didn't even necessarily earn herself.You could create a, an agreement that like you, they don't have to contribute equal dollar amounts in order to have equal influence on household decisions and maybe be they can contribute to a shared pot of money. That is just for the household. You have like a household checking account where you pay for household expenses, any kind of shared expenses, and maybe Chrisy contributes more to that account than Jordan does, but they both pay out of it for the household expenses equally.
That might be a really useful way to helpJordan feel empowered. So then there's Carson and Jade. So as, as is clear, Jade has a lot of social capital and also just experience with polyamory that a, and also just access to spaces and leadership and, and all of these things that are really gonna be potentially very intimidating to Carson. And he might not feel he, he might just not feel super comfortable rocking the boat with, with Jade at all, unless Jade goes out of their way to talk about those power differences and also to be conscious of them themselves, like be, Hey, here are the ways that I could unintentionally. If I,if Carson and I broke up and I was really mad at him that like a whole group of people could be weaponized against him. And if I wanna make sure that he feels safe, you know, rocking the boat with me, maybe if he needed to break up with me, I might wanna have a conversation with him ahead of time about the social capital that I have and, and, you know, maybe make a breakup agreement to make him feel safe if he ever needed to do that, to let him know, Hey, I would, I would not.
You know, I would, you know, maybe he still get invited to parties or maybe, you know, he would be, he would be able to come to the munch and the particular days when he would come to the munch, maybe Jade, even though they run, it would, you know, not be present there for those times so that he would still have access to community spaces, still be able to build friendships without having to worry about Jade and then just ongoing in there really relationship. I think setting that up and having conversations about those power dynamics and Jade being just conscious of what they have available to them will I think help Carson feel safer and more comfortable navigating those power dynamics in that relationship. So what about Marla and Luca? So the power dynamic that I see here is not just difference of ability. That is one thing, particularly mobility in this case, and,energy like high energy, low energy, high pain, et cetera, but also there's the power differential between Marla, Marla and Luca and Marla and her other partners who I'm, I didn't actually say this in the initial description, but I'm presuming that they're also more able bodied than Luca is.
So, you know, there's that power dynamic too, of, you know, Marla could easily just be trying to treat all her partners as equal when they're not, they all have different needs and they all different abilities. And, you know, if Marla just tends to be more spontaneous and not really considering Luca's accessibility needs Luca's energy needs and maybe even Luca's support needs,in, Luca's just faced having to advocate for themselves. And there are also these other two partners in the mix who don't have those needs. Luca may have a really hard time speaking up for themselves and saying, Hey, this is, you know, can we slow down, Hey, does that venue have is it all on one level or are there stairs, you know, et cetera. So I think if Marla really wants to equalize the power dynamic, she probably needs to get educated in disability justice and really understand how she can make herself and her relational ecosystem accessible to Luca.
And I think that's her responsibility to do that. I mean, definitely invite Luca into the process in helping create that together because obviously Luca's gonna be the best advocate for Luca, but I don't think it all of the labor of navigating those differences and abilities should be on Luca either. I think Marla has some responsibility to, to learn and to ask questions and to go out of her way, if she wants to have that relationship be nourishing for everyone. So to recap, we exist in a culture of power dynamics. And if we don't start to pay close attention to how we are operating with power dynamics within our own relationships, then it's likely that they are gonna be operating on us in either overt or covert ways that can cause a lot of harm and a lot of trouble. And so my recommendation is understand what power you have in your relationships, what power you don't have, what power the other people in your relationships have, then begin to work to talk about it with each other first, to understand what's there and then maybe do what you can to equalize it.
Sometimes you may need to move up and become more empowered. Sometimes you may need to move down and become more healthily and relationally empowered. Now, if you want more on this topic, I have something for you, Kyrr Kark, my partner and I are going to be presenting a workshop at Southwest love Fest on April 24th. As part of the conference, the topic of our workshop is accountability. It's called accountability starts with you. And it really is about not just accountability, like understanding where you've impacted other people. But again, also understanding how power can result in unconscious impacts of people within your relationship ecosystems, and also within your communities. And we're gonna be doing some concrete exercises on understanding how power works. So if you wanna dive deep into this stuff, I hope you will come join us. And also I'm just gonna point out that Southwest love Fest is an amazing conference. They're doing a live conference one weekend the weekend before the virtual conference, but Kyrr and I are gonna be part of the virtual conference, which is gonna be April 22nd through the 24th. So please, please join us. We'd love to have you. But otherwise, like I said, I invite you to just go map your power.
