What Exactly Is Responding to Authority?
The individualized self is not welcome when power is abused.
You’re driving at night. The flash of a police car’s lights brighten the sky behind you. Suddenly you know. You know that whoever is in that car knows exactly what speed you were driving at. They know how you didn’t fully stop at that last stop sign. In fact, they even know every thing you’ve ever done that’s illegal. They know…
Have you stringently controlled your thoughts because you want to make sure whoever reads them doesn’t judge you?
Do you obsessively think positive thoughts because you know that negative ones have more power?
When you get something you really want do you wait for the other shoe to drop?
What’s the common denominator in all of these questions? Authority.
Exploring your unique relationship to the known and unknown aspects of authority key you into the more subtle ways you resist personal empowerment. In today’s world, where power dynamics are coming out of shadow and authority is often in projection, getting clear about your own ability to relate to power is doing the work of the collective.
The Images
You have been taught how to engage with authority and power. How you have been treated by authority and people with power over you affected your reaction to those who yield the staff of responsibility on your behalf. The unconscious holdings in our family system around authority have formed your ability to feel your own inner authority as trustworthy or something to suppress. All of the authority figures in our lives creates our images around authority.
Can you draw a picture in your mind of what you see when you consider a quintessential authority figure?
Does authority have your best interest at heart?
Who do you have to be to deserve a positive relationship to authority?
Who do you turn into when you no longer care about what authority is telling you?
Is authority demanding something of you?
The images you have around authority relfects how you react to the different types of authority. Strong authority, weak authority or missing authority all have their own triggers. Where you stand within constructs of authority reflects more how you react than how you feel. Authority invites reaction. It invites us to respond to it.
“Yes.” “No way.” “I don’t care.” “I’ll do whatever you want.”
There are not a lot of creative ways to respond to authority. In fact, choice is pretty limited. The ways to react to authority reflect some version of submit, rebel, withdraw, or surrender. Reactions to authority are a blend of these respnses. They create your own unique response to authority.
Any response or reaction is a version of not you. Self when something is bigger and overpowering you is reflexive and learned. It is you running a program of you. This program is going to differ immensely depending on your upbringing and the level of fear, shame, and guilt you have in your body related to authority.
Response to power is not simply rational or thought based. There is also an unconscious cellular response to power. Survivors of an abusive childhood or sexual trauma perceive authority in anyone who has the same energetic pattern as that abuser. Overpowering authority in young life creates a stronger cellular response to authority - one that is unconscious and overpowering in and of itself. You cannot ignore your cellular response to authority if you want to explore your own empowerment.
Every response to authority is not completely conscious. When you respond to authority with a reaction (or a justification) you have already lost a piece of yourself. Whenever you have lost something of yourself, your ability to be relational suffers.
The unconscious expression of a response to authority takes on a posture that communicates your reaction. A submissive person holds themselves very differently than a rebellious one. You may have separated a piece of yourself away from an authoritative reaction and feel this as disassociation. In the face of authority you react habitually, compulsively, or instinctually. You may even react positively to authority because you distrust or fear some other authority more. No matter how you react, you can be more curious about the reaction itself.
The “Yes” Response
“Yes” reflects an ability or desire to surrender. When you surrender to authority it shows that you trust it. This may seem like an idealized reaction to authority when really it is a symptom of trust and a reflection of positive authority in your upbringing. A “Yes” response may show that your inner authority aligns with the outer authority’s dictates. Yes you are still responding to something bigger than yourself. You are doing it with acceptance because you want to or can. It is always good to question a “Yes” response though because you may be cellularly triggered into complacency and actually desire a more negative reaction that you do not let yourself have.
The “No way” Response
“No way” shows there is a push back and a need for a separation or boundary from an authority. When you rebel from authority you present a false self that is bigger than necessary in order to keep an other part of yourself intact. You pretend on the surface to be strong andsecure. The “no way” response has power without trust. While a clear response is present, your inner reaction may not simply be hidden from the authority but also from yourself. Power can feel like a drug, especially power in reponse to authority. Softening into the place of distrust or fear of authority is more difficult when the “no way” response is present.
The “I don’t care” Response
“I don’t care” reflects a complete giving up in response to authority. Anything you tried in the past didn’t work. The only solution is to go away. When you withdraw, you go away and let authority take you over. Within the withdraw is a loss of self. The self no longer matters because the authority is always going to win over you. Your “I don’t care” may not even have an authentic, trackable thought, emotion or will in the face of authority. Giving up is devoid of life. Another belief takes over and moves into the body letting the power have all the authority it wants. A strong “I don’t care” response may never even realize that another response is possible.
I would consider the “I don’t care” response to be responsible for the cold depression that is so rampant in our society. Cold depression occurs when you have no joy or eros for life. You do your duty. You go about performing life. To the outside world you might be successful and functional. Yet life just feels like a never ending duty to perform. The self is gone and authority has taken over.
The “I’ll do whatever you want” Response
“I’ll do whatever you want” is a learned response that masks your authentic reaction to authority. It has a timid cotowing type of respnse. You submit to authority by tamping down your own spirit and trusting in the collective. You believe you have to get small in the face of authority. This response creates the energy that I call sheeple. It is the place where authenticity is not sought and so the masses become dangerous. Followers don’t care. Followers submit. Followers do not question. Followers trust in people that are not trustworthy. This response is dangerous in that the self is acknowledged as being in service to the authority and does not count as being valuable in its individualism. There is a sense of brain washing in the “I’ll do whatever you want” response. Life is present and interesting to this response, it is just not questioned.
In day to day living, your responses to authority continue to safely navigate you through life. There is no ideal way to interact with authority. What can be present is an awareness of what in you is responding to authority and why. Knowledge of reaction reflects a chance to delve into and explore the deeper images and triggers at work. Eventually inner authority can be assessed based on the stimuli of outer authority.
Inner Authority Check In
Your rections to outer authority created a loss of inner authority. Inner authority is difficult to embody into. Being low on trust in authority itself is totally understandable. Abusive and totalitarian power abounds, as does the power that says, “I know better for you than you know for yourself.” (caretaking power) It’s no wonder your inner authority has been taken over, lost, distorted.
Your own inner authority is a unique voice that balances morality, integrity, heart, and self expression.
Whether a sense of inner authority is natural or alien to you, the practice of accessing it can be cultivated with patience and reflection. Any aspect of your life where you are either required to do a task without question can create a curiosity towareds inner authority. Boundary issues also reflect a desire to find your authority. These are two easy places to cultivate the practice of a check in.
First identify the situation. What are you being asked to do?
Breathe down into your body. Feel your physical reaction to the situation to see if you can identify your unconscious cellular response to what is going on.
Put the situation, the dilemma, into your belly with breath. Notice how your belly reacts. Does it have tension, resistance, fear? Listen to your core. Stay with yourself. Breathe and listen until the sensation turns into a sense of alignment, ah ha, or release.
When it does, bring the situation through your breath up into your heart.
Check in again.
Does your heart race, hurt, feel panicky? If so stay with your response as sensation instead of thought. Listen. Slow down. Allow something to change.
Then bring your situation back to your core and check in again. Are heart and core aligned? Listen and breath until you have a sense of coherency between heart and core, body and spirit.
When you know that your inner authority is in sync with your body, you will find your reaction to authority changes. This may require some sort of uncomfortable confrontation with yourself or another. It may need you to act in a way that seems foreign or risky. If you can stick to your true self you are learning how to remember who you are. You can start to align with your inner purpose, heart, and divinity with trust and surrender. You can become free to be you.
Here’s a meditation for you to support the process of finding your own inner authority alignment.
