Power & Love

So many people are working to shift our collective trajectory at this time.  The movement, as Paul Hawken writes, is a "blessed unrest" - a myriad of individuals, groups and movements seeking to restore balance to the world.  What are the challenges that undermine this work?  How can we become better, more conscious, more loving, and more powerful agents of positive change?

In his new book Power and Love, Adam Kahane explores our two fundamental human drives: power, which he defines as the focused pursuit to achieve one's solitary purpose, and love, the drive towards unity.  When we fall into either extreme, we are not as effective as we need to be.  We either escalate conflict by pushing for our own agenda at all costs, or we avoid conflict to keep a false peace and harmony.  Either approach taken without a respect for the other lands us into trouble.  Kahane quotes Martin Luther King: “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.”


We are challenged to hold the paradox of both.  Yet this is not as easy as it sounds, as I think we have all been imprinted by the toxic power drives that have so imbalanced our world.  Power has ruled without love in our world for a long time, and we are dealing with the consequences today. Without a conscious effort to healing that split within ourselves, we are vulnerable to falling into either side of the abyss.  Where do victim and victimizer find peace?

Somewhere in our minds and hearts are the answers, I think - pulsing with vitality and clarity, yet vulnerable enough to yearn and reach for what we long for in the deepest corners of our being.

Can we trust ourselves enough to use our power with conscious, loving intent?  Do we love fiercely enough to move us into our true power? 

Can we join together, empowered in our love, to do what needs to be done to ensure a better future?