The Real Power: Presence, Love, and the Soft Strength of the Heart

Soft power begins in presence. Like a still lake, it mirrors the inner strength and clarity that shadow work helps us reclaim.

“To me, real power is about presence. It’s the energy of knowing that you are who you are, and therefore speaking and acting from your authentic self. It doesn’t matter what your work is- if you’re a teacher or a nurse or whatever; it is your presence that’s the power. It’s not power over anybody else. It’s just the expression of who you are.

Power in the sense of controlling somebody else is different from personal presence.

Love is the real power. It’s the energy that cherishes. The more you work with that energy, the more you will see how people respond naturally to it, and the more you’ll want to use it. It brings out your creativity, and helps everyone around you flower. Your children, the people you work with- everyone blooms.”
~ Marion Woodman

I love these sentiments from Marion. They sum up the quality that I am drawn to in the people I welcome into my life, and the only kind of power that I am interested in embodying. Real power has nothing to do with domination. It isn’t loud, performative, or controlling. It doesn’t need to be the smartest person in the room, or the most polished voice in the circle.

Healthy power is about presence. The grounded, quiet knowing of who you are at your core, and the way that knowing naturally radiates from your words, your choices, your silence, your love.

This is the kind of power I’ve come to trust most. The kind I work with in my shadow work and integral coaching practices, and support my clients to reclaim, through softening and listening, rather than striving and pushing. Through releasing performance, and turning inward toward the parts of ourselves we’ve long abandoned, feared, or hidden in shame.

It’s a kind of “soft power”, not passive, but receptive and deeply attuned.

The more I came to understand this kind of power, the more I realised why periods of solitude and reflection have always mattered so much to me. It’s simply easier to stay deeply connected to my essence, and let it guide me, when I can hear my own voice clearly.

I’ve also come to recognise through some recent painful experiences that I am not someone who thrives when I have to constantly push back to claim my space or stand my ground. When I have to confront unhealthy power, or what is sometimes known as ‘power-over’ rather than ‘power-with’. Of course, it’s unfortunately sometimes necessary and I support my clients in learning how to do this when the moment calls for it. But I also know how unbelievably costly it can be physically, emotionally, psychologically, even financially. For me, it drains life force energy I’d far rather use elsewhere- on creative work, time with loved ones, pursuing my own interests.

 And I’ve learned to honour that. To see it not as a limitation, but as clarity and discernment. There’s wisdom in knowing our strengths and the edges of our tolerance, and in shaping our lives around environments that respect them, and us.

Some people, carrying particular wounds, only feel real or important when there’s something to push against, or only feel safe when they are in total control over another. They struggle to have horizontal relationships where both parties matter equally and so unconsciously seek out power dynamics that invite resistance, and then try to insist that you meet them in that tension. In certain circles I’ve seen such unhealthy power justified, and the one who can’t meet it, seen as pitiful or somehow needing to ‘develop’. But this is abuse dressed up as self-development. And the moment you recognise and understand that pattern, you can choose not to enter the game. You can choose to quietly trust that not every invitation is yours to accept. And not every battle is worth your life force.

In Integral Coaching, we recognise this as a vital part of cultivating grounded personal power: choosing long-term relationships and alliances with those whose values resonate with ours, who encourage our growth, and where being in each others’ lives will support us in more fully bringing our gifts to the world. To recognise where we may have been optimistic, but mistaken in our evaluation of those we are currently surrounded by, and to be ready to let go.

This kind of clarity is part of soft power. It’s not about demanding space, but about discerning where your energy is received, and how your presence is best given. Such discernment is an act of healthy humility too, knowing that we are not meant to be everywhere, we are not for everyone, and not everyone is for us. This humility is a gift to ourselves and others, it helps us honour and make space for the sacred work we’re here to do and the relationships that are able to meet us.

Soft Power Is a Way of Being

Author and mystic Cynthia Bourgeault describes the heart not so much as the seat of emotion, but as an instrument of spiritual perception. When we live from the spacious, attuned, wise heart as opposed to the immediate intensity of our feelings, we begin to perceive the world in new ways. We become more able to stay present in discomfort, to respond rather than react, to sense the subtle threads running underneath a conversation or a choice.

This is where love becomes power, not a desire to dominate, but a power to witness. To cherish. To choose integrity over image. To meet challenge without collapse or attack. To co-create, not attempt to control.

And it’s contagious.

As Marion writes, “everyone around you blooms.” Children. Colleagues. Partners. Clients. The parts of you that once hid in shadow, too.

Last weekend, I co-led a Shadow Work Retreat with my dear friend and co-facilitator Sascha, and we were exquisitely supported by another close friend, Ali, who is a certified coach and currently on the facilitator training path.

I was struck by the incredible depth of love and generosity this particular group of participants brought- within a few hours, it felt like a field of deep care had formed. By the end of the 3 day retreat, they had already set up a WhatsApp group to stay connected. Watching the tenderness, respect, and support they offered one another was genuinely moving.

There were several moments during the retreat where I looked across at my colleagues and felt immense gratitude- not only for their skill, but for the quiet power of their presence. It reminded me that it’s often not in what we say, but in who we are being, that a field which can support transformation unfolds. The essence of who we are, when brought into relationship with intention, creates the ripple effect that is love’s power.

What stood out, too, was that all three of us had spent formative years in the same body of work in conscious leadership development. We often laugh now about how we were “coached to within an inch of our lives”, learning to “get ourselves out of the way”, “restore integrity”, “get authentic about being inauthentic” and “give up our looking good”, mostly because we took it all very earnestly at the time. In hindsight, we were learning about ego and shadow, just in different language, and we were learning to see, and drop our masks and get to our essence, which is what we all support our clients with now.

While we’ve each gone on to deepen our practice in other modalities before coming together as shadow workers, I’m so grateful for how that early training lives in us now. Among many things, it gave us a shared foundation, and a shared expression of something essential: that this work is not all about me, or you, but about those we are here to serve. And yet… it is also about you and me, and the field that’s created when our intentions are clear, aligned, and generous. That kind of clarity allows for smooth, reciprocal relationships, rooted in mutual sovereignty, and full of joy.

Because when no one is subtly competing, feeling less than, or over-compensating and posturing, when everyone has ‘right-sized’ themselves, there’s room to relax. To play. To trust that we can each bring our gifts without shrinking or striving. And that opens the space for genuine joy to emerge, as a byproduct of shared presence.

How do I know when I’m in that place, when I’ve truly gotten myself out of the way? I feel free. In flow. Trusting. My inner voice goes quiet. I’m simply present, with whoever is in front of me, with a quiet desire to serve, not a need to ‘make’ anything happen. It’s the beauty of non-doing. The power of being.

The Shadow Side of Power

In shadow work, we sometimes speak of the ways power becomes distorted, through inflation (taking up more space than is ours to take) or deflation (collapsing and withdrawing our presence altogether). Both patterns shut down possibility and connection. Both create dissonance, where authentic presence disappears. And both are often unconscious strategies for safety.

This is particularly visible in group settings, where power dynamics become layered. Just because someone has seniority or experience doesn’t mean they have emotional spaciousness- or the capacity to make room for others with grace, even if (especially if) their ego wants to be recognised as superior. We can’t always rely on our elders or those who’ve come before us to make space for us or welcome us. And that can be really disorienting and upending, especially when we’re trying to show up as our true selves in systems that say they value authenticity, but make little room for it in practice.

That’s why my approach to shadow work and integral coaching invites us to gently uncover these old patterns around power so that we can begin to understand them. To meet them with love. To reintegrate the parts of us that were exiled, and in doing so, to begin living from a deeper, more anchored place.

Most of us learned early that it wasn’t safe to be fully ourselves. Maybe we learned to hide our sensitivity, or to shut down our intuition, or to give our power away in exchange for love, approval, or simply survival.

We developed masks and defences: performance, perfectionism, control, pleasing, withdrawing, numbing, dominating, bullying. All of these strategies are understandable. They’re not signs of failure, they’re signs of where love went missing, and where we were deeply hurt and vowed never to let that happen again.

But over time, they cost us something precious: our felt sense of wholeness. Our relationship to real, embodied presence, spontaneous aliveness, our creative life force. Our trust in the quiet knowing that we are enough, just as we are, before we do anything. Even if we never did another thing for anyone. We are enough because we are here.

Presence is Power. Love is Power.

When we reclaim our authentic presence, we reclaim our power.

But we can’t learn to reclaim our presence alone. We need spaces that feel safe enough, relationships that are steady enough, and people who will turn towards us and hold our whole being with care and dignity, especially when we’re vulnerable.

We need to be met by those whose hearts are wide enough to love beyond their partner, parents or children, because they recognise that love is a way to take care of everyone. And that emotional intimacy isn’t inherently romantic or unsafe outside a life partnership or parent role, it’s necessary if we are ever going to feel truly seen, or offer that kind of seeing to another.

Because without that level of relational courage, I don’t believe we’ll be able to course-correct the self-destructive path we’re on collectively.

Love is the real power. And when we walk with it, everyone around us blooms, including the self we’re still learning to become.