One of my teachers in the body psychotherapy world often talks about group dynamics and how we relate to people. She describes two relational systems: dominance/submission and the supportive companionable. The first way of relating is comparing ourselves to others in the group and start to feel inferior or superior. In other words, we go “one down” or “one up”. The other way of relating is to move into the “supportive companionable” where we can relate as equals – no matter what functional role we are occupying. When we are in the “less than” space we often experience powerlessness. In body psychotherapy terms: we lose our inner authority. In that moment, we sense that we don’t have a choice. We feel that things are happening “to” us and that we don’t have an impact on our environment. To work with trauma and stress it’s crucial that we get out of the patterns of dominance (thinking too much of ourselves) and submission (thinking too little of ourselves) and move towards the supportive companionable.
The current situation is stress inducing, can be potentially traumatic and I have been tracking in myself that occasionally I’m moving into the one down position. In those moments I feel things are done to me and the world is unfair. When I’m stopping and recognising that I have choices, albeit sometimes not great ones, I can reclaim my inner power and take charge of making things work for me, which is a crucial aspect in moving through the current difficulties in a healthy way. To maintain inner authority, it’s pivotal that we take small breaks, sense into how we are, slow down and integrate our experiences. We need to take charge of making things work for us. The inner feeling of being in charge gets diminished when we just “suck it up and get on with things". When do you lose your sense of inner authority? What is it like in your body? Where do you collapse? What choices do you actually have?
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