It's Time to Laugh at the Power Taboo
Raise Your Status & End the Abuse
Openly discussing personal power is one of the final taboos that society has allowed to remain unchallenged—a subject that is never considered polite conversation. Yet most of us still want power, and our lives often become one long and desperate struggle to hold and maintain it. Power to make our own choices and decisions. Power to obtain and manage resources. Power to negotiate our life’s direction.
Systems of sharing power are not taught to us in school; most only learn by example. Without systems and roles in place, however, power is almost impossible to share.
Who Do You Talk Down To?
How much power and influence each of us wields within a family plays a significant role in verbal abuse.
If you have kids, please stop and think about this. The next time you find yourself grilling your child about why they didn’t go to the bathroom before you left home when you are tired and grumpy, stop and ask yourself if you would talk this way to someone your age or older.
Most of us are guilty of this at some point, if not with our children, then perhaps with a younger brother, sister or cousin.
Because of this, any attempt to avoid verbal abuse must start with you making some serious moves to improve your position in the pecking order.
This doesn’t mean becoming ruthless, but moving into a position of greater authority will hopefully help you set a better tone in how people are treated in your family or organisation.
I Feel Terrible About This…
In my early marriage to Steve (and in other past relationships), I was guilty of verbal abuse. This happened sometimes when (I am ashamed to say) I did not understand that men tend to become emotionally overwhelmed much faster than women.
In difficult conversations, I mistook silence as stonewalling, a kind of deliberate insult or torture that would cause me to become hurtful at the worst possible moments.
No matter how much you think someone is deliberately unresponsive, you may not fully appreciate what is happening in their emotional world. It is much better to overcome the urge to hit them with angry words. You might consider hitting the pause button and taking some time out for yourself instead.
Maybe you can use empathy and remember a time when you couldn’t talk because you were emotionally overwhelmed?
I will offer some practical scripts for countering verbal abuse soon; someone just paid for access to my series on verbal abuse at The Love Safety Net. I haven’t looked at those articles for a few years, so I am busy editing and updating them this week.
While you wait patiently and give me a chance to get those old gems cleaned up and polished, let’s look at a few factors affecting a person’s power within the hierarchy, why this causes fights, and how you can improve your standing.
The Basics
An individual’s power is based on how much money, energy and time a person has. You can increase all three areas in your life by focusing on some well-chosen goals and consistently improving your daily habits.
A few factors to consider;
Your financial and emotional stability (the two are undoubtedly linked).
How trustworthy you are.
Your ability to ask for what you need and expect from others.
Your ability to put across your point of view without putting anyone down.
Your addictions, including time and money-wasting habits.
Being able to put conditions on what you offer or simply say no.
There is a lot of practical advice on becoming someone who commands respect and who others have empathy for in my two short ebooks (with pictures) titled The Little Book of Empathy, Love and Friendship and Emotional Stupidity. Have a look in our bookshop if you are interested.
Soon, I will have The Verbal Abuse Series revamped and ready to tempt you with, including a straightforward step I took to help turn the power imbalance in my marriage on its head and how that resulted in the cupboards and drawers in our house all getting organised with our children’s help.
Until then, I will tell you a little about my journey, increasing my status.
Introducing myself as a writer has always felt awkward; telling people about what you write is never fun. I would not be a writer if I could explain things face-to-face in a few sentences.
So lately, I have been answering that I am a Time Lord. That has led to some fun conversations, including stories about history and my new obsession with longevity medicine.
Related to status, I have also written a bio on Steve and myself for the About page here on Substack. If you are interested in our vastly different backgrounds and how that has affected who we are and what we write, I encourage you to have a look at Kim and Steve Cooper.
I have more time, energy and money than I ever have in my life right now, so the painful steps I have taken in the past (learning to stand up for myself being the major one) feel as if they have been worth it today.
More from me later this week!