Freeing myself from the disconnected domination culture (DDC) through reclaiming my outrage, pregnancy, birth, parenting, natural learning, changing my language, not being willing to coerce myself, and following my callings.
The DDC wants us to believe we are powerless. It wants us to internalise should and guilt, self-coercion and the belief that we don’t have choice and can’t make a difference. The more we each free ourselves from these untruths and reclaim our true nature as powerful and loving souls, the more the DDC will crumble to the ground.
➺ I would love to share some of my journey of reclaiming my power.
As a child and teenager, I was deeply quiet, trembly and introverted.
I also had, what was called at the time, ‘a temper.’
How little we understood humans back then!
In photos as a teen, my fists were clenched.
In my early twenties, I would often exude a kind of silent rage – arms crossed, quiet, eyes glinting.
When I look at those photographs now, see how much will-energy I was suppressing. So much unexpressed rage from experiences of not having choice, autonomy, agency, and being overpowered, what I call will-hurts.
The DDC routinely inflicts will-hurts on babies, children as teens, as part of conditioning us away from knowing how truly powerful we are. (It also creates love-hurts through routinely separating babies and children from their families).
Despite having loving parents, I experienced the same will-hurts as most children growing up in the DDC at that time – sleeping alone at night as a baby, no choice about going to school, being punished, shamed and coerced to do things. Then I had my own particular will-hurts including medical procedures from being in an incubator for 5 weeks as a newborn, traumatic dentist visits, and being separated from each of my parents for 18 months each.
➺ So, in my early twenties, I was a simmering volcano of unexpressed powerlessness, frustration and outrage.
As my twenties went on, my relationship with power began to change.
➺ I started to make friends with rage through therapy and training as a psychotherapist;
➺ I began to understand the DDC and to disentangle myself from it, step by step;
➺ I started to reconnect with my yeses and noes;
➺ I started to see all the places where I had choice and agency and how powerful I actually was, in pregnancy, parenting and natural learning;
➺ I became passionate about understanding how much DDC conditioning is passed on through language.
➺ I stopped coercing myself to do things and instead act from willingness, and I follow my callings.
There were key points in this journey I’d love to share with you, and I wonder if you resonate with them. I want to remind you that we each have a unique journey with reclaiming our true power.
➺➺ Befriending the sensations of frustration and rage in my body:
I connected with what I then called anger and now call rage or outrage, in the weekly therapy I started at 22, because I wanted to understand how my past was affecting my present. I also did this in the therapy training groups I was in as I trained as a psychotherapist in the 90’s. Nowadays, I feel really comfortable with the sensations of frustration and outrage in my body, and experience these as beautiful will energy.
➺➺ Understanding the DDC and disentangling myself from it:
I now see that one of the core ways that the DDC helps us believe we aren’t the powerful beings we are is through tricking women that they aren’t powerful during pregnancy, birth and parenting. This is the greatest deception ever.
I first started to learn about the mainstream birthing system and the cycle of interventions that routinely happen whilst I was doing my Ph.D. on postnatal depression and the mother-infant relationship, which I started in 1992. My eyes were opened.
During that time, I came across The Continuum Concept in a little bookshop in Cambridge. I love that I was in one of the most masculine bastions of academia – Cambridge University – and was deeply connecting with indigenous ways of being with babies through reading Jean Liedloff’s book about the Yequana people, so deeply connected with their babies, unlike what routinely happens in the DDC.
➺➺ Increasingly connecting with my yeses and noes:
I listened to what I really wanted and didn’t want, even though others didn’t agree – eg. I left academia at 28 because I was no longer willing to be in a place so disconnected from embodied wisdom.
➺➺ Seeing where I had choice and agency and realising how powerful I actually was through pregnancy, birth and parenting;
Contemplating getting pregnant in my early 30’s, and TERRIFIED, I came across HypnoBirthing through a number of synchronicities and went and trained in it, got pregnant, and went from being terrified of giving birth to having deep trust in my body and my baby, and had the deepest sense of power I’d had up until that point in giving birth, a mostly free birth with my then-husband supporting me.
I’d done a huge amount of research, inner work and complementary treatments during the pregnancy – a midwife friend visited a few weeks before I gave birth and said that she had never seen a woman prepare as much for birth as I had.
I gave birth to my son 4.5 years later, this time with Calmbirth, and this time it was a fully free birth experience. I felt SO POWERFUL! He was a big baby, it was 1.5 hours, he was posterior, I used The Lifting Technique, and afterwards I had the sense “I can do ANYTHING!”
I had taken complete responsibility for my profound wellbeing during both of the births; and had freed myself from the DDC in relation to pregnancy and birth.
Parenting was the next way I reclaimed my power. Having spent the whole of my twenties combining academic study and research into babies and child development, whilst training and working as a Psychosynthesis Psychotherapist, I knew that I wanted to combine all that I’d learnt into how I was with my children.
I came across Aware Parenting when I was pregnant with my daughter in 2001, and it fitted with all my academic and therapeutic work, AND it had extra pieces I’d never heard of – the idea that babies have feelings right from in utero and can heal from stress and trauma from birth onwards, through expressing their feelings in our loving arms.
I started practicing it with my daughter, and have loved it ever since. My key reason was to support my children in being deeply emotionally healthy – getting to express their feelings in loving arms, and needing relatively few control patterns – imagine my surprise when I learnt through experience that this also meant that they slept easily and peacefully and until 8 or 9 in the morning, were deeply calm and relaxed and present, were gentle with each other, cooperative, and gorgeous to be with. It turns out that most of the things we find stressful as parents are caused by accumulated painful feelings.
I loved that I was relatively free from the DDC in parenting. I didn’t ever need to resort to punishments or rewards, to coercion or force (although my own experiences of being raised in this paradigm of course came out at times to be heard and healed!)
➺➺ The next part of my journey was so much about reclaiming my power through changing my language.
I trained in Private Subconcious-Mind Healing in 2001 and understood profoundly about the power of words on our consciousness.
I’d learnt from Alfie Kohn about not praising or rewarding, but it was learning about Nonviolent Communication (NVC) which helped me understand language and power at a whole different level.
I came across it in 2002, when my daughter was 9 months old, and it helped me see how much domination is hardwired into our language.
I learnt about how ’should’ leads to guilt and anger (differentiated from outrage) and how words like ‘have to’ are all part of the coercion.
I learnt how our language gives away responsibility and blame for our feelings and needs to others, eg. “you made me feel…”
I couldn’t believe that in all my therapy training, I hadn’t learnt to differentiate feelings from thoughts. I thought that if I said, “I feel…” then whatever followed was a feeling. I learnt that actually, many of the words we think are feelings are actually thoughts, eg. “I feel abused / manipulated / abandoned. I learnt that, “I feel that you are…” is not a feeling but a thought. I noticed how often people say, “I feel” when they mean, “I think.”
I realised how important this is in reclaiming our power from the DDC. The DDC is passed on, to a large extent, through language. Understanding the difference between our thoughts and feelings is vital if we are to free ourselves from the DDC.
I deeply deeply immersed myself in NVC just as I had deeply immersed myself in learning about pregnancy, birth, and Aware Parenting. I know that if we really want to shift paradigms in our consciousness and actions, it’s not enough to dabble. We need to really immerse ourselves in the new way in order to internalise it as the new paradigm.
I saw this in my children. They both spoke classical NVC for many years. Just as I translated books as I read to my daughter, she then went on to translate into NVC when she read to her brother.
➺➺ Freeing myself from DDC conditioning about learning and education:
Next came my children’s learning. I wasn’t willing for them to be cared for by people, or be in systems where they would be punished, rewarded or coerced.
I became very clear early on that, given the options around where I lived, that that meant them not going to school. And what I’ve most learnt in 20 years of non-school is how glad I am that I didn’t send them to school, and how much that freed us all from the DDC.
It helped me see so clearly how much the mainstream schooling system is based on industrialisation and painful beliefs about human beings.
What I’ve learnt, through witnessing my children, is that children have a profound capacity to learn whatever they need to learn and are interested in. They don’t need to be coerced, forced, given marks or homework. When we support them in following their interests, they are passionate and devoted learners. They retain the joy in learning and their own power and capacity to learn what they love.
➺➺ Learning about the power of our consciousness:
In 2006, I started the next phase of my learning, as I dived into the consciousness-as-cause work from The Field Project. I trained with them for 6 years and became a Facilitator. That was the next level of understanding the power of our willingness and identity in shaping our experience of the world. I also deeply immersed myself in that process.
I first started exploring power consciously then. In a facilitating session with Philip Golabuk, the founder of The Field Project, which started off on the topic of money and my dad, I came to the statement, “power and beauty are my birthright.” I was very uncomfortable with earning money and feeling powerful in my life and in the world at the time.
I’ve been working with power, and understanding power from a psychospiritual perspective, ever since.
➺➺ Power through following my callings:
I’ve reclaimed my power through deeply trusting in, and lovingly and willingly following my callings.
When I was 24, I met a man who was choosing to work just 2 days a week. I had never heard of such a thing, but it spoke to me clearly. I didn’t want to be coerced to work, I wanted autonomy and choice in relation to my work. In my twenties, I chose to work 4 days a week, combining my academic research and teaching work with seeing psychotherapy clients.
When I became a mother, I kept on seeing 1 or 2 clients a week in HypnoBirthing and then Calm Birth. Then I started writing articles for what became Kindred Magazine. My then-husband would look after our children at those times I was seeing clients, and I’d often write at night when they were asleep.
Over the years, I gradually increased the time I worked. I’ve always followed what I love. I ran Aware Parenting circles and NVC workshops, mother’s circles and Aware Parenting workshops.
in my early mothering days I still felt a lot of powerlessness at times. I wanted to understand more about power and powerlessness in mothering, so I deepened that journey.
I’ve been a solo mama for 11 years, and in 2014, the next step of reclaiming my power happened, as I started creating online courses. The combination of earning more money (money and power being so related, particularly for mothers), making more of a difference, reaching more people, expanding my own work, and sharing my voice and my thoughts, was profound.
I also deepened my understanding of power when I created the Power and Powerlessness in Parenting Course in 2015.
➺➺ Stopping coercing myself and shoulding myself, and only doing things from willingness:
Nowadays, through developing the will and willingness work, I choose when I work, what I do, and do not coerce myself to work. I work from my willingness.
Alongside my own journey from extreme powerlessness to having a deep sense of embodied power, I’ve developed maps and models, practices and processes that I use myself and that I offer in courses and to mentees.
You might have heard me talk about Love and Will.
Power is the Will-Work.
I started joining dots between many maps I had trained in, and saw how they fitted together.
I’ve created my own paradigm and practices, based on my own experiences around over the past 33+ years: Psychospiritual Parenting and ReParenting, which includes three parts: Love, Will and Conversations with Life. The power work is the will-work and I’ve passionately mentored others in reclaiming their power as well as their true lovingness and unique Soul nature.
From being full of self-judgment, fear, powerlessness and pent-up rage, I now deeply value myself and my work. I believe that my work is important and valuable in part of changing the DDC. I have lots of free-flowing life energy to keep on taking action doing what I love and sharing what I believe is helpful to shift the paradigm.
I feel energised by my work, whether that’s creating courses, writing books, or walking alongside mentees.
➺➺ I’ve combined my experiences in:
➺. Coming to love and welcome frustration and outrage;
➺ Agency, autonomy, choice and power in pregnancy, birth, parenting, education and work;
➺ Listening to all the unexpressed powerlessness, frustration and outrage of the younger parts of me;
➺ Changing my language and internal dialogue from inner coercion, force and guilt, to compassionately honouring agency, autonomy and choice;
➺ Supporting my children grow up with so many of their will-needs for agency, autonomy and choice being met.
➺ Acting from willingness not self-coercion and following my callings lovingly and willingly.
➺➺ With what I’ve learnt from others:
➺ I started joining dots between many maps I had trained in, and saw how they fitted together.
➺ I linked Will and Love that I learnt about at the London Institute of Psychosynthesis ~
➺ With my understanding of the domination culture, coercion, should, guilt and “are you willing” from Nonviolent Communication ~
➺ With my understanding of children’s needs for agency and autonomy, feelings of frustration and rage, and expression through raging and tantrums from Aware Parenting ~
➺ With my understanding of the power of our willingness and not-willingness to invite what we really want or don’t want into being (or not) from The Field Project.
I’m so grateful to all these people and paradigms from whom I’ve received so much.
➺➺. Integrated together, these form the backbone of the Will element of The Marion Method for Psychospiritual Parenting and ReParenting, including
➺ The Willingness Practice
➺ The Willingness for All Practice
➺ Slug Wisdom (honouring our yeses and noes)
➺ The Neo No
➺ Power and Powerlessness in Parenting
➺ Getting Free from Guilt
➺ Mothering, money and power.
I love that power is going to be my focus for this month, because I love sharing this work, I am passionate about deepening my own experience of embodied power, and I know that the theory and practice will evolve as I write and share about it.
➺➺ Some of the offerings where you can be supported in your own power and will journey are:
➺ The Wonder of Willingness Course;
➺ my Powerlessness, Power-over and Power-with in Parenting Masterclass;
➺ Power and Powerlessness in Parenting Course;
➺ Transformation Through Mothering;
➺ The Psychospiritual Parenting Course;
I believe that more than ever, we are being invited to deeply understand power, which is deeply necessary if we are to move beyond the disconnected domination culture to an interconnected power-with paradigm.
➺ And next, my True Power Course is coming! If you want to gradually free yourself from the DDC, embody your true power and be part of co-creating a new connected and power-with culture, I invite you to keep reading my posts!
Or since some of them will be long like this one, would you like to sign up to read them in email form instead?
You can do that here.
Big love,
Marion xoxox