Power Abuse

Power Abuse

Do you feel you have been controlled, oppressed, dominated, shut down, blamed at even you can’t clearly define and recall specific hurtful memory or incident? Or you have experienced systemic oppression because of abuse of power either by domineering parent, partner, boss, coworker, coach, doctor, pastor, spiritual leader, your workplace or country?

Power abuse, developed from Patriarchal Systemic Oppression, can show up at your work place, place of learning, your family, your relationship, doctor office, sports organizations, your ethnic groups. It can show up as verbal abuse, verbal harassment, bullying, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse and microagressison. It is a place where your human dignity and human rights are taken away by man or woman or system of privileged power ( government, colonialism, patriarchal law system, church, etc ).

Power abuse is often hidden from society and it is accepted in the place where it is happening. Silently accepted. Those places are usually Patriarchal structured and abuse is systemic. Having said that, power abuse can happen from domineering women as well. 

Feeling less, feeling small, feeling guilty and blamed at, feeling oppressed, feeling unsafe, feeling humiliated and shamed. From the moment you enter in power abuse dynamic you learn you can’t express and live your truth without being conditioned by “someone above” and it feels unsafe to speak up.  

Being in minority of any kind, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, skin color, immigration status, social status minority, work hierarchy, patriarchal structured homes can increase exposure to abuse of power.

Genocides, forced assimilation, residential schools, slavery, extortions camps are examples of direct tyranny and abuse of power by the governing system. 

Unresolved traumas, some going back up to seven generations, can entangle us in stress disorders and situations that don’t belong to us. This is why it’s called inherited, or intergenerational or collective trauma we are born into and we are born into rigid patriarchal system. Patriarchal Trauma can forge a blueprint for our life, and can be passed pass onto our children as it did past to you. It doesn’t have to continue. Power abuse is fertilized by patriarchal soil.

Patriarchal trauma can also be more subtle. How often you listen and lived by this : “Don’t be so smart, people don’t like it”. “Don’t stick out”. “ Don’t speak up, just smile”. “ You should be seen, not heard”, “ Don’t wear this you look like a slut”. “That? You look like a nun.”, ” You look good. You lost a weight.” , “ You look to skinny, you don’t look like a women.”, “Don’t make more money, he won’t like it”,  “ What will family say?”. “What will neighbours say”, “Boys don’t cry.”,  “ Compose yourself, you are hysterical”, “ You are too happy, what is wrong with you?” , “Don’t dim his/her light, it is not fair.”, “ Don’t make him feel less, it will not be good for your career.”, ” Respect elders, be quite”,  “Take his last name, it is a tradition”, “This is how we do in our family”,  “ This is our tradition, and you need to respect it”, “ Why are you so sure of your self?”, ” What do you need now?”, “Can’t you settled down finally?”.

Not big T trauma right?, but this is what defines deep layers of oppressive conditioning and this subtle blaming and subtle covert threats is an environment where our nervous system goes into a flight, fight or freeze state and it is how we move to trauma and pain bodies. Done in our families, our society, religion, countries, workplace, neighbourhood, done collectively, in a form of man and woman as well for thousands of years . It is collective, ancestral inherited trauma transferred down to your DNA and it is your individual trauma.