The Best Way to Win the Power Play is to Stop Playing

One night a close friend of mine was talking about having to speak to her mother for the first time after a long separation. She was building up fear around the situation, worried about all the ways her mother was going to pick a fight. I told my friend, “The best way to win the power play is to stop playing.” As an adult, my friend can simply say, “Okay,” to her mother’s opinions and barbs, then walk away and do her own thing regardless. Her peace of mind in that situation is only really lost if she chooses to feel vulnerable to attack and fight back over something that, in the end, is really insignificant.

It all seemed so simple, and the truth usually does—at least, when you’re telling the truth to other people. I could see her situation for what it was. But the universe is a funny place, and, as soon as I said it, I had to contemplate my own power plays and what I was winning at the cost of losing.

It’s a “Game”

Many people treat relationships like a game, complete with a winner and a loser. Because our culture prizes individuality and teaches us that being taken advantage of or mistreated is the worst thing that can happen in a relationship, we’re constantly on the lookout for moments when our partners, family members or friends are one-upping us—and, when we think we see it, we’re ready to fight back. Vulnerability, openness, honesty and humility are often surpassed by an intense need to protect ourselves from outside threat—real or imagined.

But who really wins when we behave this way? We might win a fight or two, we might get our way a few times, and we might beat our romantic relationship into looking like a fairy tale ending—but how do we feel? Do we feel intimate, emotionally connected, supported and loved, or are we “winning” and “losing” at the cost of healthy relationships—and our own sanity?

I started to contemplate a relationship of my own. It was (and is) a very important relationship to me. We’d been through a lot, he and I, and we’d gone from being best friends to being partners, speaking every day to not speaking at all, and back to friendship again. Intimacy is a simple concept, but when human egos get involved, it gets complicated.

I realized that I wasn’t saying, “I love you.” Neither of us were. We’d always said it when we were friends, before we’d even become romantically involved. I was feeling stung because I still wanted to be involved with him romantically, but I also knew that I was mature enough to handle being friends if that just wasn’t in our cards anymore.

I believe he was afraid of saying it because he didn’t want me to get the wrong impression or open up the possibility of a romantic relationship again. The power play was on. To say, “I love you,” would make whoever said it vulnerable, and neither of us was willing to give up that much “power”—the power of protection, the power to walk away if stuff got tough.

Head vs. Heart—Ego vs. Spirit

The first trick is to see the power play for what it is—a play. It’s an attempt of our ego to create the illusion of control. When my girlfriend was wrestling with calling her estranged mother, she was imagining all of the stuff she was afraid her mother would say, and she was falling into their long-running power play. Her mother would undermine her self-esteem because of her own ego’s need for security, and my girlfriend would play along because that’s the nature of the power play—it gains in power the more we play along.

But here’s a question you may never have heard before: would you rather be right or happy? It may seem like a silly question. “Of course being right is being happy!” Before you blow this question off as a useless rhetorical quandary with little or no applicable value, really consider it. When you’re fighting to the death, so sure that you’re right, what usually ends up happening? The answer is simple: your relationships (and your Social Wellness) suffer.

The ego has an interest in keeping you separate from everyone around you. It sees people as objects—a means to an end—and feels threatened by any form of vulnerability. Even though you can’t actually control anyone else, the ego needs to feel it’s in control, so you engage in the power play. You might not always be the initiator, but you probably play along. The key is to begin seeing the power play for what it is in order to learn more about yourself and the situation around you. This way, you can take yourself out of the cycle and stop playing to start loving.

When I’m fighting to be “right,” I’m not being honest. My friend might fight with her mother because she doesn’t want her mother to “get away with it” or “think she’s taking advantage” of her. All she really gains is a fight, though. When I’m digging in my heels and refusing to say, “I love you,” to someone I love simply because I’m afraid it will give him too much power, I’m not being true to myself, and I’m trying to manipulate the relationship. In the end, that doesn’t make me any happier, even if it seems to get me what I want.

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Why? My ego is not me. Following my ego’s lead may help me maintain a life that others envy—a life of power and cool indifference—but it doesn’t lead me to my heart’s desire. Think of the mind as the seat of the ego and the heart as the seat of the spirit. Ultimately it is our heart’s desire to have intimate relationships, to love and to be loved and let down our guard for the ultimate surrender. Our egos learn early, though, that this might not always be “safe.” Other people’s egos interact with our own, playing out their own insecurities, and we come to believe that protecting ourselves and looking out for number one is the only way to play.

There’s another way to find security, though, and it’s less about “winning” and more about “tapping in.”

Surrender to Win

I suddenly found myself in a situation in which “being right” was definitely not going to lead me to happiness. When I’m struggling to keep my spirit lined up with my ego, it’s an uncomfortable battle. When I’m letting my spirit lead, my ego tends to find its fears unfounded, and there’s no struggle other than the struggle to get my ego out of the way long enough to let my spirit through. Specifically, was I going to make myself vulnerable and express to this person how much I care about him, whatever our relationship status, or was I going to force my spirit to shut up so that I could save face?

I’m not talking about big declarations of love, either. I had no goal in saying, “I love you.” I had no expectation that he would do one thing or the other. It wasn’t necessarily a romantic feeling, although I was open to the possibility if it arose. Instead, it was simply an underlying feeling of “wherever you are, whatever you do, I love you.” I had to let go of my need to be “right”—in this case, to hold some control and feel secure in my imagined power—and become vulnerable—the only state in which the highest happiness can flow.

That may sound very lofty, but the simple truth is the best way to win the power play is to stop playing. This goes far beyond that simple question of right or happy, but that’s a good place to start. Ultimately, we have to stop seeing our relationships as a competition in which our goal is to “win” what we want from the other person. Relationships aren’t a “me vs. them” situation. Healthy relationships are an “us” situation, and viewing yourself and your partner as a team will ultimately lead you to come up with what is best for everyone. The power play focuses only on the idea that either one person or the other is going to get their way or that winning the argument somehow proves something about the worth of the winner. If we want to have healthy relationships and Social Wellness, we must open ourselves up in this way.

Imagine that you’re comfortable with who you are. You feel comfortable in your own skin—you trust yourself, love yourself, and give yourself a break. Bring those feelings to mind and close your eyes, imagining what your life would look like and feel like from this perspective. If someone picks a fight with you, do you want to engage? Or do you want to let it slide right off of you? When you’re more focused on being happy than “right,” everyone around you can have a different opinion, a negative attitude, or insecure fear, and you can let them be—it is, after all, their process. You can let them have it without taking it on, secure in the fact that you know your own heart and you do the best you can with what you’ve got.

When you stop playing the power game, you can also focus on intimate relationships that aim for the highest good for all involved. It’s a spirit of love—not war.

My girlfriend can let her mother’s insecurities slide off of her back because she is secure within herself. She may get a little shaken, and she may really want to “let her have it,” but she understands that she surrenders her own peace of mind when she does that. I often like to tell myself, “I don’t have to give up my own peace of mind just because others don’t have any.” When I’m fighting to be “right” with someone else who thinks they’re just as “right,” that’s exactly what I’m doing.

And me? I told him, “I love you.” I made it clear that it came with no stipulations; it was just the way I felt. And we’re still friends. I don’t have to stifle my expression in an effort to manipulate control with an ego façade. I can be honest. My truth may not be his truth—as of right now we’re not riding off into the sunset together—but it doesn’t have to be. I don’t have to be “right,” remember?

I just have to keep my eye on happy.

Author: Nan Little
Website: http://www.InsightJournal.com/