In Twelve Step programs, the first step, as I understand it, is recognizing that we are powerless to heal alone.

We cannot overcome addiction, trauma, or systemic oppression through sheer willpower or individual effort. Healing, recovery, and meaningful change require connection, support, and systems that foster growth.

All true! But we should not make a virtue out of being powerless.

Recognizing what is beyond your ability isn’t the same as accepting that you are powerless to change. Powerlessness is, in fact, a protective response that disconnects us from our personal power.

When we conflate protection with powerlessness, we risk internalizing the very dynamics that keep us trapped in authoritarian systems—whether in families, partnerships, workplaces, faith communities, or governments.

Power-over systems create environments where speaking up feels dangerous, where challenging authority risks humiliation or exile. But no matter the system or oppression, we always retain what Right Use of Power methodology calls our personal power. And that’s precisely why authoritarian structures work so hard to make us feel otherwise.

Owning your personal power in an authoritarian system requires deep, intentional work. And we cannot do it alone.

My guest today will introduce you to the types of power in the Right Use of Power framework and help you reconnect with your personal power so that you can stand firm and do hard, scary, necessary things.

Dr. Amanda Aguilera currently serves as the Executive Director of the Right Use of Power Institute and a Trusted Advisor at The Ally Co. She has dedicated most of her career to helping people and organizations understand systems, conflict, and social power dynamics to create right relationship and a sense of belonging. She has a knack for making difficult conversations easier, complex ideas more accessible, and resistance more workable. Integrating power, contemplative practices, neurobiology, and restorative practices, she works by finding a balance of head and heart and facilitating the co-creation of strategic maps that lead us forward in a more equitable way.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How the Right Use of Power framework gave Amanda language to understand and articulate power
• Why power itself is fundamentally neutral
• How Right Use of Power reframes power as a dynamic and not a possession
• Breaking down the six types of power from personal to universal
• Why direct challenges to status power are so often destabilizing 
• How undeveloped personal power leads people to do harm with their role and status power
• Why we have to become aware of how power exists in our relationships
• How developing our personal power helps us to participate in the collective power that can actually challenge systems
• How leaders can foster healthy power differential relationships

Learn more about Dr. Amanda Aguilera:

• Right Use of Power Institute
• Instagram: @rightuseofpowerinstitute

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• The Unburdened Leader on Substack
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• EP 88: Right-Use-of-Power: Navigating Leadership Dynamics with Dr. Cedar Barstow
• EP 14: Consenting to Grief as a Leadership Practice with Dean Nelson, PhD
• Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, Richard Rohr
• All About Love, bell hooks
• Marie Beecham
• Alt National Park Service
• Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls, Kai Cheng Thom
• Indigo Girls - Closer to Fine
• Pose
• The Karate Kid 
• Star Wars