Imagine that you are in a supermarket and you happen to notice a scene between
a mother and a child. The mother is angry because the little girl continues to take toys
off the shelves and put them into the grocery cart. The mother puts the toys back on the
shelf and yells at the child to behave herself. But the child is stubborn and persistent and
keeps taking the toys and throwing them into the trolley. Finally, the mother begins to
shake the child very hard, yelling at her to stop and behave herself. When the little girl
begins to cry, the mother smacks her in the face and tells her to be quiet. The girl cries
even louder and the mother hits her again.
1. Imagine that you are this little girl. What would you feel? What
2. would happen to you inside? What might be the effect on you from
3. being treated in this way?
4. As the bystander, what kind of emotion do you feel after watching
5. this scene?
6. And if you were to intervene between the mother and the child, what
7. do you imagine you might say to the mother?
We tell you this story because it helps to outline what we call “the three stages of
empowerment.”
Probably this child will experience lasting fear, shock, and shame from being
treated in this way.
Perhaps you might feel some anger at the mother for abusing the child in this way.
Or you might feel the helplessness and desperation of the mother and understand
her feelings.
Perhaps if you were to intervene, you might say to the mother:
“Stop. You are hurting her. There is another way to deal with this situation instead
of using violence! I understand that you are desperate, but let’s see if we can find another
way.”
You would be temporarily taking on the role of protector for this child. But as
long as the mother continued to treat her this way, the girl would be at risk of
experiencing a childhood filled with fear and shock, and would be powerless to change
the negative direction of her life.
In our experience, the ability to feel and live our power – find our ability to set
limits clearly and nonviolently, we find that we will go through three states. They are
seldom linear, but each stage is an aspect of process.
1. Awareness of shame, shock, and fear and identifying the negative belief
2. Feeling the anger of invasion
3. Setting limits with clarity and heart.103
Stage 1: Awareness of Shame, Shock, and Fear and Identifying the Negative Belief
In the first stage, we are becoming aware of when and how we get and got invaded
and the effect that these invasions have upon us.
It is already a huge step when we are no longer living in denial or being oblivious
to incidents when we are being disrespected.
At this stage, we cannot respond or even feel angry.
But we may begin to feel the fear, shock, and shame that are there.
Also, when we are in this state, it can help to identify a shame-driven or fear-
driven belief that holds us in the shame, fear, or shock.
This is all part of the first stage of empowerment.
It is profoundly empowering simply to become aware of how deep and how
frequent our fear and shock are, how easily these feelings may get triggered, and how
we experience them.
Stage 2: Feeling the Anger of Invasion
But there comes a time as we allow ourselves to feel shock, fear, and the shame
of being disrespected when we start to feel some anger arising.
We begin to sense that it was and is not right to be treated this way.
When we bring more dignity to ourselves, we naturally begin to feel outrage at
someone invading our lives with his or her opinions, judgments, criticism, threats,
pressure, expectations, and aggression.
And when this healthy anger begins to surface, we are entering into the second
stage of empowerment.
This is a big step, because as we discussed in the last chapter, it might be difficult
for us to allow ourselves to feel anger.
But anger is the healthy and natural emotion to feel when our boundaries are not
respected.
It was the emotion that perhaps we could not feel as a child, but now we are strong
and big enough to allow it to arise from inside of us.
The anger of the second stage of empowerment is not the anger we feel when we
are irritated that things are not going the way we want, or the anger we feel when we
get impatient or overwhelmed, or the anger of feeling frustrated when we are not getting
what we want from someone or from life.
It is the anger that re-affirms our sense of self.
It is like a deep fire inside that begins to wake up—a fire of dignity and self-
respect.
Our true life energy wants to expand and to live.104
When we begin to get in touch with this fire inside, it will very likely produce
intense fear and guilt because:
1. We might have been threatened, shamed, punished, beaten, or
rejected in the past when we expressed energy or rebellion.
2. We repressed this life energy very early because we were taught that it is not polite to be angry or create a disturbance.
3. It is too frightening to step away from the crowd, from our family, and our environment and become our own person. And as a result, we may have learned to shrink our energy and become small. We may have a lot of built-up resentments inside for being so profoundlyrepressed in our vital life energy.
Patrick was intimidated from an early age by his father’s anger and beatings and
his mother’s controlling behavior. When he first came to work with us, he was extremely
timid and soft-spoken. He continued to have a close connection to both his parents, even
though they continued to abuse him. He was not able to understand the effect this
treatment had on him. However, as the work progressed, Patrick slowly began to
connect with some anger. At first, it caused him to feel so guilty and frightened that he
quickly suppressed it, but soon he began to enjoy the feeling of his anger and the sense
of power it gave him. We suggested he work with it in a healthy way by taking boxing.
The second stage of empowerment is awakening and making friends with this
anger.
Anger is in essence an energy of protection and assertion of dignity.
Naturally, we may fear that when we do get in touch with the anger inside us we
could hurt someone or ourselves and lose control.
Therefore, the best way to work with the rage of the second stage is to do it in
environments that are safe, such as doing kickboxing in a gym, working individually
with a therapist, or doing workshops where we can safely express this energy without
hurting ourselves or someone else.
In this stage of empowerment, our anger is generally not limited to the situation
that has provoked us. It also contains all the anger we have built up from prior invasions
in our lives where we could not express or defend ourselves.
In our work, we don’t encourage people to take out their anger on their partner,
friend, parent, or child because when we are raging at someone, it is not truly
empowering, and furthermore, it can deeply damage the trust between us and the other
person.
It will probably happen when we are close to someone, that we have an outburst
of anger. That’s fine as long as we use that energy to go deeper with ourselves and with
the other person. It can be a stepping-stone to more honest communication.
It is not okay if it’s simply an unconscious venting.105
Stage 3: Setting Limits with Clarity
True and lasting empowerment comes at the third stage.
Here, we learn to stand up for ourselves and for our energy and our needs, and, if
necessary, to set clear, appropriate, and assertive limits.
In the third stage of empowerment, we are no longer blinded by an emotional
space.
Our power lies in our clarity and in our confidence in being able to feel ourselves
and to protect our boundaries.
Self-respect develops as we are able to feel what is right for us and to set clear
limits to specific behaviors.
When we set a limit in the third stage, we are not saying “no” to the other person,
but rather setting a limit to a certain behavior. Naturally, it takes time to find the clarity
and courage to do this in real life.
But we can practice with a friend or a therapist, as Andrea’s story illustrates:
Andrea, a forty-six-year-old woman, is currently in a difficult relationship with a
Peter. Peter has been wounded himself, so he protects himself by being very concerned
about his own needs and doesn’t easily recognize her or her needs. She admires his
energy, fortitude, perseverance, and confidence but gets infuriated with his selfishness.
She has been with him for nine years, and during this time—thanks to her commitment
to ongoing individual therapy and seminars—she has progressed through the three
stages of empowerment.
At first, Peter’s dominating behavior only brought up her
shame and shock. She was feeling very insecure and constantly judged and doubted
herself. She could not feel her own needs or when he was invasive and disrespectful. It
never occurred to her that she needed mutual vulnerability and respect. But gradually,
she began to feel the rage inside that was also connected to her mother’s equally selfish
ways. To help her anger awaken, she joined a kickboxing class at her local gym.
Andrea started raging at Peter but these outbreaks of anger only made their
connection worse. She recognized that it was good for her to feel the anger, but this way
of reacting and fighting with him was not helping. As she began to love herself, she
could also validate her needs for recognition and respect and realized that she could no
longer bend her life around him and give up her creativity and her friends.
At first, she practiced how to set clear limits with him with her therapist. She had to work through
all her fears that he would not listen or understand, that he would rage back at her, or
that he would leave her. But at this point, she knew that she would rather have her
dignity than continue giving up herself and getting bitter, angry, and resentful.
Eventually, Andrea found the courage to speak to him directly and express her needs.
This clarity from her side woke him up, and he realized that if he wanted to keep this
relationship, he too needed to take a good look at himself. He began ongoing therapy.106
Exercise:
Take a moment to consider the significant relationships in your life.
Is there anyone with whom you feel disrespected or invaded?
If so, what is the way he or she is disrespecting you?
· Telling you what you should do, think, or say?
· Consistently coming late or not coming to an appointment?
· Threatening you in some way with aggression, rejection, or
· withholding attention or money?
· Being aggressive with you through actions or words?
· Not respecting you when you set a limit?
· What do you feel inside when you receive this kind of treatment?
· Do you go into fear or shock?
· Do you feel shame?
· Do you feel anger?
· Imagine saying something to this person such as:
· “It is not okay for me when you…!”
· “It is hard for me to be open to you when you…”
· Then allow yourself to feel whatever fear or guilt comes up when you imagine saying this.