Water has always been a master teacher for me when it comes to power. Growing up coastal, I've experienced what it means to be held down by a massive wave, and wonder if I'd ever rise to the surface again. A storm at sea is one of the most beautiful examples of power I have ever witnessed. This isn't what I think of when I think of water teaching me about power, however. I think about how water flows, takes the shape of everything it encounters, moves around and through in a fluid dance. Ice. Water. Gas. Always changing. This is power. This is the power of responding to what is rather than holding down or forcing.
I had a surprise encounter with my own power this week. I was walking my dogs when I heard a horrendous barking and growling across the street. My own dogs immediately responded, one defensively with her own threatening bark, and the other pulling toward the perpetrator thinking it perhaps someone to play with. Almost instantly, that growling, barking body (a boxer sort of dog) was barreling full speed across the street at us, teeth barred.
I didn't think. I responded. I turned to the villain face on and at the top of my voice yelled "Stop!" It was more than a yell. I have never used my voice this way before. It was a full-body voice. It used my whole body when it was thrown forward, and I suspect everyone on the street heard it. Deep. Confident. Loud. I felt the authority of the universe flowing through me in one word: stop.
What resulted looked almost like something you'd see in a comic book. The bully dog came to a full stop about a foot away from me, one leg still poised in the air. My own two pups were silent and all leash pulling ceased. For a few moments we were all frozen in space and time. That bully dog, standing on three legs, stared at me, and I stared at him. I held its gaze. It did not look away or move. After a few breaths, I pulled from the same voice of authority, and said "Go. Home. Now." And it did. It broke gaze with me and trotted meekly back across the street.
I still don't know where that voice I summoned came from. I was as surprised by it as that bully dog seemed to be. What struck me is that we probably have vast reserves of power available to us, but don't draw on it. Maybe it is when we aren't trying to be powerful that we are potentially the most powerful of all. When we are deeply tuned to the moment, and to what that moment requires, our innate authority emerges.We have "gotten out of our own way."
Now that I know "the force is with me" I am challenged to only use it for good. I am rethinking what it means to lead, as a woman, in these interesting times of ours. Leadership needs rethinking, and so does power. I will sit as a student of water, and learn the power of flow. There is more to come on this topic, I think. For now, I am studying, and water is my teacher. I need to learn how to use this voice of mine before it is called for again.
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