Facet: Discovering Your True Power
The capacity to step out of victim / persecutor / rescuer dynamics and into clean authorship — power with, not power over or power under.
Move out of a paradigm of “being at the effect of,” trading that for what real power looks and feels like: Aliveness, effectiveness, passion, and strength. — Manual v3, p. 107
How it shows up in practice
True power is distinct from dominance and from helplessness. A practitioner moves toward it by recognizing the triangulated dynamics they get pulled into, taking back the parts of their experience they had located in other people, and choosing congruence between what they want, what they say, and what they do.
The “I…” competencies
The canonical Colwell Practice list of what someone who has developed this facet can do (Manual v3, p. 107):
- I live by the Four Pillars of Integrity (speaking the truth, feeling my feelings fully, making and keeping impeccable agreements, taking 100% responsibility).
- I regularly inventory and correct leaks in my integrity (incompletions, poor agreements).
- I regularly inventory and correct blocks to my energy flow by feeling my feelings fully.
- I understand the Karpman Drama Triangle and how to move out of it into Creative Open Space.
- I am committed to living in my full power.
- I notice when I’m in Power Over or Power Under and take steps to move back to Power With.
Where this lives visually
The inner-map diagram depicts this facet directly. The right axis labels the three power positions:
- Power Over — the mobilized Reactive Brain register (Pride, Anger, agitated Fear) — power exerted against people or circumstances.
- Power Under — the immobilized Reactive Brain register (frozen Fear, Sadness, Despair, Guilt, Shame) — power surrendered to people or circumstances.
- Evolutionary Power — the Creative Brain / ESSENCE register (Neutrality through Peace) — power with, available when the practitioner crosses the Bridge.
Discovering one’s true power, in the diagram’s terms, is the move across the Bridge — willingness to shift and see self as creator — into Evolutionary Power, out of both Over and Under.
Related principles and tools
- inner-map — the visual home for the Power axis; this facet’s territory is depicted on it directly.
- karpman-triangle — the dynamic this facet works to move out of.
- four-pillars-of-integrity · incompletion-inventory · power-with-over-under — deep-dive tools mapped here by v5.
Status notes
New to the wiki as of v5 ingest 2026-05-25. Held as under-review
pending team confirmation of the Six Facets’ relationship to the Guiding
Principles. The Inner Map ingest (also 2026-05-25) reinforces this
facet’s structural importance — the Power Over / Under / With axis is
load-bearing in the canonical diagram.