A month or so ago, we lost our much loved cat after 16 years; she’d shared our home with her two daughters.  She was undoubtedly ‘Top Cat’ here, and her two ‘kittens’ kind of stayed kittens throughout her reign.  Once she died, suddenly they didn’t quite know how to relate to each other.  There was a vacant slot for Boss Cat and they can’t agree who it belongs to.  This shift in the status quo has thrown a real crimp into their relationship as they feel compelled to ‘duke it out’ for the vacant position.

It is fascinating how relationships come under pressure and change when the power dynamic changes.  This doesn’t just apply to animals but to us too.  It applies when one person gets promoted above a colleague, or when one partner perhaps looses their job and the other becomes the main breadwinner.  It happens as children grow into their prime and their parents age.  Power in a relationship is a key determinant to the shape of a relationship. 

Just to keep life interesting, we have thrown a ‘wildcard’ into the house as we have just acquired two new kittens, Rambo & Roxie, so doubtless there will be another dimension to the power struggles now!

I’d be interested to learn how shifts in the power dynamic in your relationships has affected them.

“The term ‘power’ comes from the Latin posse: to do, to be able, to change, to influence or effect. To have power is to possess the capacity to control or direct change. All forms of leadership must make use of power. The central issue of power in leadership is not Will it be used? But rather Will it be used wisely and well?”  Al Gini

  “Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.”  Carl Jung