The Key to Unlocking the Power Dynamic in Your Life

Status is relational: when you play one status you are essentially casting your partner in the other status.

Source: Image from Rawpixel.

We all have a way we carry ourselves physically in the world. The way we stand, talk, look: our non-verbal communication. In theater improvisation, we call this our “status.” In this case, status doesn’t refer to having money or a fancy job title but rather the importance a person is perceived as having in relation to others. The high status person is perceived as having more power, dominance, confidence, and ownership of the space or interaction. The low status person is more submissive, less sure, and defers to the high status. In relationships, it is a relational see-saw of changing status between partners.

Each of us has our preferred status and with each interaction, we move between the two statuses, although usually playing our default status. Over time we become very good at playing one status but not very happy or competent in playing the other. These positions are often referred to in the world of psychotherapy as going one up and one down. Low status usually corresponds with a one down position. High status parallels with a one up position. Each position offers defense, compensation, and protection as well as gains and losses.

Low status

Low status is physically expressed with more twitching, blinking, touching of the face and body, communicates: “I’m not threatening.” The secondary gain from the low status/one down position is that it is perceived as approachable and non-threatening. Another gain is an effective and non-threatening style of communication that works well in relationships, which Adam Grant calls Powerless communication.

The price for the low status players is often a feeling of being small and insecure. Additionally, constantly positioning yourself one down might create a victim triangle dynamic: the low status person might slowly become the victim, with people telling them what to do, giving them advice or attacking them.

In short, low status is more approachable but less authoritative.

High status

High status is usually expressed with slower movements, speech, and rhythm. A person who plays high status is sending a message: “Don't come near me.” Some people use this status to compensate for their insecurities by making themselves feel bigger than they are. Subsequently, they gain power, authority, and respect. The price they pay is that of loneliness because they are often come across as arrogant and less approachable.

Status dynamics in relationships

Status is relational: when you play one status you are essentially casting your partner in the other status. Most people naturally make status shifts when communicating. Yet, when one partner is too rigid and doesn't shift between statuses, it creates a feeling of rigidness or uncomfortableness. Inflexible status players are less fun to talk with because they constantly constrict their partners to only one status.

How do you shift between statuses?

There are many practical physical tips to help raise or lower your status. You can raise status by slowing down your speech, blinking less, speaking more fluidly and consistently with fewer breaks and fidgeting. You can lower your status, by breaking eye contact, touching your body and face more, and using powerless communication. Click here for a short video demonstrating the physical differences in both status.

Yet let’s think about these statuses from a psychological or emotional dimension. Being one up means that you feel big, and have something to give to the world. You can raise status when you speak your passion, when you’re following your bliss. You can lower your status, by being open, vulnerable, not knowing and accepting influence.

Moreover, you can change your status by softening your core beliefs about power and dominance. The status you are less comfortable with seems scary, undesirable, even weird. I once worked with a woman who desperately wanted to move up in her workplace but didn’t want to be a manager because she believed that “being a manager is lonely”. This core belief was preventing her from exercising high status. Her preferred status was low, and she saw being a manager (playing high status) and calling the shots as very lonely because high status was not familiar for her. By slowly softening her core beliefs, she was able to expand her status repertoire to include more high status interaction which in time led to her getting promoted.

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High status partners can learn how to lower status, not just physically, but by allowing themselves to be vulnerable. Remember that asking questions or advice does not make you small. It makes you human and connects you to others.

Low status partners can remember that being one up is not the same as being arrogant. High status is the way that you can gain respect and power that you earned and deserve.

You can raise status when you speak your passion when you’re following your bliss. You can lower your status, by being open, vulnerable, not knowing and accepting influence.

What comes up must come down and what goes down must come up.

Source: Michael Maggiore/Pixabay

How can expand your status range?

1. Recognize your preferred status. Film yourself or have someone take pictures or ask for feedback. Alternately, ask your partner or good friend what status they experience you playing.
   1. Are you more low status, or more high status? Do you usually take a one-up position in conversations or you take the one down?
2. Write down all the positive and negative characteristics of the other status. These might include some core beliefs about power and compliance.
3. Choose one relationship where you feel there's some playful flexibility where you’d be open to experiment with the other status.
4. Share with them this article so you both will understand the concept of status.
5. Experiment going more one up or one down than you’re used to. Play with changing your physical stance or your internal emotional state.
6. Expect ruptures because people are not used to you behaving like that. They may try to push you back to your default status.
7. Breathe and hold on to yourself. Hopefully, over time, you will start experiencing a wider range of status expression in your relationships.

Each status is equally important. We have one life to live and we want to feel free, open, and flexible. Our most intimate relationships should be ones where we can play both high and low status and enable our partner to do the same. The aim is to bring more of ourselves, of the different shades of who we are, into this world and all of our relationships.

What comes up must come down and what goes down must come up.