What is our innate power? I see it as our personal force built and sustained upon the following:
- Our sense of self
- Our instincts
- Our spirit
- Our freedom
- Our sense of agency
- Our autonomy
- Our choice and decision-making
- Our rights
- Our personal responsibility for ourselves
- Our joy and passion
- Our confidence
- Our trust in ourselves and the world
- Our actions
- Our resilience
We are born with the potential for this power but its full development and expression depends on conditions and circumstances we find ourselves in as children. If our caregivers nourished and supported our independence, freedom in making our own choices, if they positively mirrored us, then we would build a strong and a positive sense of self and stay connected with this power for the rest of our lives.
Unfortunately, this does not happen in children with narcissistic parents or caregivers. The child’s developing tender sense of self is crushed before it even gets a chance to fully grow. A child’s developing power is undermined with every snide remark, with every limitation, with every time the narcissistic parent redefines the child’s reality and tells them that what they see, sense, feel and understand is wrong.
Overtime with the parents’ chronic displays of aggression the child never develops their power, never truly steps into it. Their developing sense of self dissipates without having a chance to fully establish when living with a tyrannous narcissist.
When the child grows up, they don’t really know who they are and are therefore not connected with their strength and power. Their false sense of self put upon them by their parents is very fragile and can be easily wounded, broken or destroyed completely. To have a false sense of self is a very painful experience. You cannot live fully, you cannot be fully present, you cannot fully participate in life because you are disconnected from your power, your true sense of self.
So if we want to have a healthy and amazing life, we have to build a sense of self now as adults. We have to consciously and meticulously build new neural pathways in our brain that form our psyche and therefore our sense of self.
It is important to note that the developmental trauma received from narcissistic parents in childhood should not be underestimated. If you really struggle, consider seeking professional help.
Regardless of whether you work with a therapist or on your own, you can boost your healing and recovery of your power through writing. Writing can help you to:
- Create self-awareness
- Build new neural pathways in the brain
Here are some simple exercises you might want to try.
EXERCISE # 1 Write about yourself
In this exercise you write about your current self. This practice is aimed at creating a deeper awareness of yourself. Write about what qualities you have, what kind of person you are. This exercise will help you see yourself more clearly.
EXERCISE # 2 Reclaim your power
This is a discovery practice to find and list as many examples that you can remember about your experiences of your personal power when you were a child. Here you can list as many examples as you can where you expressed yourself, where you did something for yourself, where you exercised your rights, freedoms and your will. All of these examples are signs you have inner power and seeing them more clearly through writing will help you reclaim it. List as many experiences as you can. Make it a daily practice for a period of time, as long as you can. You will see how soon your sense of self will start to change as your perception of self will change through these exercises.
Here are some examples to get you started:
- “I survived my childhood.”
This took power, resilience and a strong drive to live.
- “I liked __ and I did it.”
List here everything you personally liked and chose to do as a child. For example, “I liked to draw and I did it.” Here you are connecting to our personal preferences and your choice to realise them despite the fact that they may have been devalued and undermined by your narcissistic parents simply because they didn’t suit them or didn’t fit in their view of the world.
- “I did _ as a child.”
Here you can list everything you overcame in your childhood, your personal difficulties and struggles that you survived.
You can then take this exercise further and keep a record of examples of you exercising your power as an adult.
EXERCISE # 3 Create a new self
Here we focus on building new traits, news skills and continue developing our power. The process could consist of the following steps:
- AIM
Identify what you’d like to work on.
- CURRENT SKILLS
Do an inventory of what you already have that you can build on.
- NEW SKILLS
Define what skills and resources you need to achieve your aim.
- STRATEGY
Create a list of small achievable steps you can take.
- PROGRESS
Record your progress and adjust your process accordingly. For example, you may notice that you push yourself too much and try to do certain steps too fast and too soon and end up struggling. You can then review your steps and try to bring the intensity down and choose easier steps and actions as you build your strength.
To visualise the process, let’s take an example of a person who wants to work on their social anxiety.
- AIM
“To work on my social anxiety and become more comfortable talking to people in different settings.”
- CURRENT SKILLS
“I already can talk to people that I know well quite comfortably.”
- NEW SKILLS
“Self-confidence and self-love, non-violent communication, small talk.”
- STRATEGY
“Start practising small talk with supermarket cashiers, in a queue, etc.”
- PROGRESS
“Today I had a conversation with a person walking their dog in my neighbourhood. We had a lovely chat and it felt great!”
Making these exercises a daily practice will help you create new awareness, new skills and new habits. Focusing on yourself through writing you can develop a stronger sense of self and step into your power!