Taking Everyone Off Their Pedestals
Rebalancing relationship equality to live a more empowered life
Today, I felt slightly uneasy and perhaps even a bit anxious about a couple of relationships in my life.
The reasons these feelings were brought to the fore were incredibly minor, such as how someone handled a situation or reacted to something I said.
And yet, as minor as they were, I couldn’t shake the feelings of unease that they created within me.
I took the time to delve a little deeper into these disconcerting feelings to see what was behind them. This soon revealed a slight layer of inadequacy hiding underneath my discomfort.
I sat with these unsettling feelings and examined the very different situations to see why these people’s words and actions ignited them.
And why was something relatively so minuscule affecting me to this degree?
Then it clicked.
Even though these situations were very different, it became evident that they had one thing in common: I had these people on a pedestal without realising it.
Over the last few years, I have done extensive inner work to knock off everyone that I had on a pedestal and bring them back to level ground.
It seems I had missed one and put another there unconsciously. Oops.
So it was time to tune into my heart and swiftly move them back onto level ground so that I could immediately halt all siphoning of my power to another.
Consequently, I thought we’d delve into how people end up on pedestals and how to remove them.
It Starts Before We Can Talk
By age 10, we already have at least a handful of people on a pedestal, likely unbeknownst to us.
It starts with our parents. They give us food, shelter and hopefully love. Therefore, they make the rules that we obediently follow (mostly) to ensure our safety.
Then we go to school, and we have our teachers who call the shots.
When we are in our early teens, we start to get involved in hobbies such as sports or the arts and open up to music. We then all have our favourite superstars that we idolise.
This continues into our adult lives as we have the likes of governments and bosses to deal with. And with social media these days, even regular people and influencers are on pedestals.
We often do not realise this, but it sets a precedent for our personal relationships, as this pattern has been unconsciously ingrained in us.
All of these scenarios create a hierarchy in our relationships, indicating that one party is subordinate to the other.
Thus, it implies that one party in the relationship is above another, whereas in truth, we all have a human experience but bear different functions equally.
Subconsciously, this creates separation and teaches that the subservient party is less important than the party calling the shots or in the limelight.
In turn, this frequently leads to imbalanced adult relationships as we continue to perpetuate this unhealthy controlling and submissive pattern - even if it is slight, it is generally present.
“Capitalization implies a hierarchy, that some letters are more special than others.” - Douglas Coupland
Which Role Are You Playing?
It is often not a clear-cut answer.
Chances are that in some relationships, you are more assertive, whereas in others, you are more passive.
These dynamics can also shift as you evolve.
If you are more confident and secure in yourself, you are likely to lean towards being the dominating party, whereas if you have low self-esteem and self-worth, you may find yourself being more of a submissive people-pleaser.
Neither is better than the other - we are going for equality here.
If you are honest with yourself, you will be able to identify which role you play more often. I am more of the latter, but there have been times in my life when I have also played the former.
Take a moment and assess the role you portray most often.
If you lean towards being more dominant, this usually comes with characteristics such as being bossy, controlling, demanding, and putting your needs first above all else.
Conversely, traits such as lack of self-respect, people-pleasing, not speaking one's truth, and always putting one's needs last belong to the more subservient.
Both sides can be manipulative, though probably the submissive party is just less conscious of this tendency.
If you are prone to being dominant, this role is often played to mitigate the fact that you do not feel whole within yourself, so you need to control another to feel safe.
If you tend to be more submissive in your relationships, this is often due to feeling unloved and undeserving, so you will do what it takes to obtain this nurturing from another.
Both are sides of the same coin and at some level, an innate sense of separation and unworthiness are present in both extremes.
Don’t Fall Into The Ego’s Trap
You can ascertain an imbalanced relationship dynamic by how you feel around a person.
Allow how people’s words and actions impact you to notify you whether you have them or they have you on a pedestal.
For example, are you making how they feel and react more important than how you do?
Are you questioning your value against their words and actions?
The opposite also applies.
Be aware that when you become conscious of a role you play in either extreme, your ego’s immediate reaction will be to slander the other person and blame them for playing their role as the root cause of this state of affairs.
This temporary role reversal is the ego’s self-defence against the horror of being exposed, and it is equally inappropriate.
Reestablishing equality is the desired outcome.
Catch yourself when you witness this happening and return to the root cause - which is always you.
Identify that you have needs that are not being met within you that are causing you to play out this pattern so that they can be met externally.
Also, celebrate that you have come to this realisation!
Because of this, you can now internally investigate which of your needs are not being met and how you can fulfil these needs yourself.
“Each being is sacred - meaning that each has inherent value that cannot be ranked in a hierarchy or compared to the value of another being.” - Starhawk
Give Yourself The Validation You Deserve
When we look for validation and outside praise, it is only because we are not giving it to ourselves.
What we seek externally is a reflection of what we lack internally.
The need for outside validation ceases when we can fully back ourselves and verify that we are living and expressing our authentic truth.
This inner alignment is the only validation we truly need.
Of course, having a community that supports us is beautiful, and we all need confirmation here and there. We are not intended to journey alone.
However, living authentically is our key to living an empowered life because we cannot be empowered until we are fully living in our truth, aligned in all that we say, do and create, which translates to our actions.
Ultimately, yours is the only validation that you need, so what matters is that you validate yourself.
And then, who’s in their power?
Yes, you!
Rebalancing The Scales
A few years back, I had a life-changing moment when I listened to Aaron Doughty recite a personal story about a celebrity (whose name escapes me now). He came into a shop he was working at and was really nice to him and left him with the following advice:
“If you treat someone like a celebrity, they’ll treat you like a fan.”
This stuck with me and was a pivotal point in my own journey.
No matter who they are, we are not better or worse or more or less than anybody else.
Treat everyone with respect and kindness, admire others' accomplishments, and know that they are as divinely human as you are, whether they are a celebrity, a colleague, or a family member.
By not having anyone on a pedestal, you regain your empowerment and live in your authentic truth.
You can speak up and be honest, no matter the outcome. You are safe in knowing that you are meeting your intrinsic needs.
Only then can you genuinely be of service.
You are not less or more than; you are even, for we are all cut from the same cloth of Infinite Intelligence.
Infinite Love,
Ponder Woman
“Nature admits no hierarchy of beauty or usefulness or importance.” - Stephen Fry
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