Power-With, Not Power-Over

I recently read an article called “Instagram Is Training You to Leave People Who Love You.” The author argues that social media has become a kind of third party in our relationships, turning temporary conflicts into fixed judgments. You have a fight with your partner, watch ten algorithmically chosen reels, and suddenly you’re evaluating your relationship through someone else’s lens of “avoidant attachment” or “emotional labor.”

We’re not only outsourcing our ability to judge whether relationships are healthy. We’re also forgetting that no relationship can bear the weight of constant interpretation. Intimacy requires curiosity, a sense of, “This experience is new. Let’s see where it goes.” That’s one reason we’re so lonely. Loneliness isn’t just the absence of others. It’s also what happens when our explanations of others become so complete that there’s no longer anyone left to meet.

In my style of coaching, there’s a concept called “power-with, not power-over.” Power-over means assuming I know what’s best for you, or what your experience means. Power-with means allowing you to remain the authority on your own life.

As a coach, I’ve learned that my analyses of my clients aren’t useful. Even when they’re intellectually elegant, they close down the possibility of transformation. The last thing I want a client to say is, “Wow, Paul, you’re so smart!” That’s when I know the power to change has left the room.

We do this to the people we love all the time. We develop increasingly sophisticated theories about them. We know what their silence means. We know which childhood wound they’re acting out. What we don’t see is the person in front of us.

We do this to ourselves too. We accumulate explanations: our attachment styles, our traumas, our diagnoses. Some of these may be helpful. Some may even be true. But none of them is you.

Stay open to the mystery of you. Find power with it. Don’t try to rule over it.

As always, if you’d like to be held through your process, reach out and we’ll set up a free coaching call.