Anger and Power (an Extract)

From Mike Fisher Book Beating Anger

Exract from Mike Fisher's book Beating ANGER published 2005 Rider Books, RANDOM HOUSE.

Anger and Power

Power has many connotations, especially in abusive, angry settings. In its pure form, however, power is energy, and energy has consciousness. Power can be used to develop and nourish relationships, or it can be used to destroy them. Every time you use your anger inappropriately, you give your power away and abuse it. By exploring our relationship to power as a phenomenon, we can better support ourselves in managing our anger appropriately.
When I am talking about power relationships in my workshops I often notice that people's eyes begin to glaze over. We hear a lot about personal power and empowerment, and yet few of us are able really to relate these concepts to our everyday lives, or explore them in our personal relationships. We may associate power with those in authority, such as our parents, our teachers, gurus, the rich and famous, our boss, politicians and so on. The notion of having real personal power can be either scary or exhilarating, or both at the same time.

Becoming aware of power dynamics and how they get played out in our life, is a revelation and a turning-point for most of us, particularly with regard to understanding anger issues. It enables us to begin to make choices about how we deal with and manage situations where negative power dynamics are being played out.

The three types of power
There are three basic relationships to power. Two of them, powerlessness and seeking power over, are unhealthy; the third, empowerment is healthy.

Powerlessness
Those who fear their own power tend to disempower themselves in subversive and sophisticated ways. They may blame others for the things that go wrong in their lives, perhaps feeling hard done by them. On the other hand, they may blame themselves for being so incompetent, feeling that whatever they do is not good enough.