Introduction
Power moves in the world in four forms — Power-Over and Power-Under, Power-With and Power-Within — and each one, turned inward, becomes a way of being a self. This piece maps those four powers onto their four selves: the Dismissed Self that gave its power away, the Deluded Self that traded its essence for position, the Truthful Self that meets others as equals, and the Essential Self that is simply home. The point is not to pick the right self and stay there; the reality is movement, back and forth, day to day, and none of it is failure. What the map gives you is orientation — a way to notice, in any given moment, which self is doing the answering. From your Essential Self, saying I AM is enough; you don't have to clear away everything first to arrive. So the question at the center of all of it isn't which self I should be, but where I am right now, and who in me is speaking.
How Power Becomes a Self
There are essentially four forms of power, and they work in two pairs.
The first pair is Power-Over and Power-Under. Power-Over wants influence and control over everything, and is willing to do a lot to maintain this influence and control. Power-Over maintains its position by convincing you the only way you can be safe is to accept its authority over you. Accepting is what Power-Under does. Power-Under takes the deal.
The other pair is Power-With and Power-Within. Power-Within is you living inside-out through your experience of I am. Believing you have control over you. Believing you don't need to give your control up to some external authority. Power-With is the expression of Power-Within in the public space. One way to understand Power-With is as the freedom to speak truth to power, because you're not worried someone will end you for opening your mouth. Power-With is also about how connection is shared rather than used as a coercive tool.
For example, family is planning a reunion. One group argues for beef and chicken. The other argues for fish. The arguing goes on and on until everyone turns to the mother and asks what the meal should be. She says, “We will have all.” She is speaking words of Power-With for the group: the ability to say the truth of a situation and have everybody recognize the truth in the statement.
Where the Self Shows Up
The Four Powers describe how power moves in the world. And power is also an internal experience, and each form of power has a corresponding expression of self. In these four forms of power, you can see how the self is divided. So when the words undivided self or essential self appear here, this names a self that doesn't feel like it has to be divided in some way.
I call these the Four Selves. They help you recognize where you are in any moment and what's possible from there.
The Dismissed Self
The Dismissed Self is the internal experience of Power-Under. When you are in your Dismissed Self, you have given up your power. You've accepted the story that you are not enough, that your truth doesn't matter, that you need external authority to guide you. The Dismissed Self believes: I am broken. I am unworthy. I cannot trust myself.
The Dismissed Self is not who you are. This self is a posture you've learned, a way of being that Power-Over demanded of you. For many people the Dismissed Self is where living begins, because this self is learned early, in your environment, from whatever was going on around you. Every time you dismiss your own knowing, override your felt sense, or defer to external authority over your own truth, you're operating from the Dismissed Self. And often the Dismissed Self has no idea of any other way of being self.
The Deluded Self
The Deluded Self is the internal experience of Power-Over. When you are in your Deluded Self, you've accepted Power-Over's framework, either by wielding the framework against others or by internalizing the framework against yourself. The Deluded Self believes the game is real: worth must be proven, some are better than others, control and domination are what safety requires. Survival sits at the center of this self's story, and survival becomes the manipulation tool used to keep its power.
The delusion is the belief of being better than everybody else, and the price is the whole game: this self has exchanged its essence for position. Given up the best of itself to have the status of being Power-Over. Traded the truth of intrinsic worth for the false promise of earned worth. Even when the Deluded Self appears strong or successful, the center is hollow: always needing more proof, more control, more validation.
The Truthful Self
The Truthful Self is the internal experience of Power-With. When you are in your Truthful Self, you speak and live from what you know to be true. You can meet others as equals because you're not trying to dominate or defer. The Truthful Self believes: My truth matters. Your truth matters. There is a place where the two can meet.
The Truthful Self is not trying to change somebody else's truth. This self makes the effort to understand why that truth belongs to the other person. So the Truthful Self is able to share, to connect, to exchange, not from neediness but from a fullness that comes from being connected to I AM. This self doesn't require agreement to feel secure. This self can hold difference without threat because the foundation under the difference is personal knowing.
The Essential Self
The Essential Self is the internal experience of Power-Within. When you are in your Essential Self, you are home. You are operating from your center, from your sense of inherent worth, from an integration of body, mind, heart, and soul. The Essential Self believes: I am whole, worthy, and complete. I trust myself to find my truth.
The Essential Self is not something you create or achieve. This self is what you recognize within yourself. Who you are beneath all the complications, the fear, the false stories. Most importantly, you don't have to clear away everything to get there. There is not a huge long list of all the things to complete before you experience yourself just as you are. Enough to say I AM and feel how saying so feels, or feel how hard the feeling is to find. There you are, either way, connected to I AM.
Back and Forth
Am I perfectly in my Essential Self, all day, every day? No. The reality is movement back and forth. Capacity changes day to day. A hard night of sleep, a headache, and the self that was available yesterday is somewhere else this morning. Or the really cool thing you did yesterday loosened something within you, so today you get to look at the really shitty thing. None of this is failure. This is just where you are in the moment.
So the question is not: Which self I should be?
The question is the one of orientation: Where am I, in this moment, and which self is doing the answering?