Authentic Power vs Force
In challenging situations finding our authentic power is the key. Photo: Ken Wylie
About ten years ago I was working a youth ski touring program in the Rockies with a couple of other guides, for a Canmore based company. This was a few years after the tragic incident with Strathcona Tweedsmuir school students in Connaught Creek in 2003, so we all understood that youth groups required a lower tolerance for risk, or we should have.
Things were going fine until about Tuesday, when I informed one of the guys I was working with that he was the lead guide for the trip. I noted that it was his name was on the top of the schedule at the guiding company, not mine. The tone shifted after he became aware of his percieved power.
The next morning, at our guides meeting, our “Lead Guide” suggested that we ski up an aggressive route on steep slope above a deep gully or what we call a terrain trap, to get to a summit we had picked as a high point destination.
To which I said, “We don’t need to do that with these kids. Let’s take the route around the backside to get there.”
He replied, “I’m the lead guide so we will take the route I suggested.”
I responded, “Okay, if that is what you want to do then we will make a note in each of our field books that I did not agree, and we all need to sign to acknowledge this fact so that if anything happens, you alone are responsible.”
He replied, “We can take the route around the backside”
We all have access to our own authentic power. It is a choice about how to be in the world and how we respond to situations. First off, authentic power does not shy away from the responsibility we have for ourselves and those in our sphere of care. People with authentic power have the courage to stand up to protect the vulnerable even if that person is ourselves. When we access our authentic power we listen to what a situation needs with an aim to hear the truth, which allows us to act with greater precision.
Force is using leverage against ourselves or others to do things. Force puts people under duress so they agree to contrived situations or consequences. Authentic power is an inner journey, a battle to find the strength and wisdom inside ourselves, to do the right thing. That is power and every day we make dozens of choices that can land us in authentic power rather than force. We are all on this journey. The two guides in this situation could just have easily been my own inner turmoil about a decision.
For more on Authentic Power, visit www.archetypal.ca