the tyrant works for me

I have no desire to be a tyrant or a megalomaniac. Lord knows we have enough of those characters in the world.

And yet I know the archetype lives in me. Only now am I understanding it. 

I spent much of my life afraid of being overpowered by tyrannical men. I remember listening through walls as a child, hearing my stepfather verbally manipulate my mother. Not physical violence, but that particular kind of overpowering that happens through words, through emotional control.

When I was 17, I dropped out of school and moved in with a boy who would lock me in rooms and tell me that if I ever left him, he'd kill himself on my doorstep and it would be all my fault. The fear became real. Concrete. I knew what it meant to be trapped by someone else's tyranny.

After that, I always chose men I perceived as weaker than me, so that I was the one in control and could not be overpowered. I stayed in a kind of managed powerlessness. Powerful enough to control the men I chose. Not powerful enough to risk being truly seen by someone who wouldn't submit.

And then I found the New Age teachings.

They gave me permission to claim power, but without the accountability piece. Without deep reverence for life. Without the recognition of other sovereigns. It was all agency, no mystery. All authorship, no being-authored. All "you create your reality" with no acknowledgment of the larger story being told.

So the tyrant archetype I feared and repressed came through me disguised as "manifestation." As "high vibe." As spiritual superiority. I could manipulate and call it co-creation. I could override others and call it holding my frequency. I could make everything about my will and call it sovereignty. The part of me that so desperately wanted power (while harboring the secret fear of being overpowered) bought into the idea that I was all-powerful, that this whole life was a dream emanation coming directly from me and me alone.

Until Life served me up a romance with a narcissist. An actual megalomaniacal tyrant. And the pattern I'd been avoiding finally caught up with me.

When it all collapsed - when the teachings stopped working, and I couldn't manipulate my way out of real loss and limitation - I had to face what I'd been avoiding all along:

That unbridled power was never the solution to the fear of being overpowered. Nor was passivity. 

I had been oscillating between two extremes of submission and tyranny most of my life. Between being scared to touch my power at all and desperately wanting my power. Powerlessness as protection, then power without limits. Back and forth. Neither one sustainable. Both states of disempowerment. One afraid to touch power, so feels powerless. The other desperately wanting power, so sells its soul for it.

That sort of oscillation is no longer sustainable for me, and so the tyrant and the submissive are now being married, integrated, and added to my retinue. Something I could not have done until now. 

I know deep in my being that I am a microcosm of that which created me. I did not create myself; in this way, I am submissive. I have great reverence and awe for the mysterious whatever-it-is that conceived of me, and yet I know my inheritance is creative freedom over my personal world.

This is my dominion. My life. My realm. My birthright.

I respect that all others have dominion over their lives as well, that our realms intersect at times, and that I am often in negotiation with the great creative enterprises of others as well as with Life herself. 

I know that the tyrant lives in me, forever, as do all the archetypes. The ones I have rejected act as free agents until the day comes when I face them, embrace them, learn what they have to offer, and consciously put them to work on my behalf. 

I understand the purpose of the tyrant. It serves destruction in the name of transformation. It’s one of Life's wrecking balls. 

The tyrant forces me to face what I’ve been avoiding. It creates conditions so intolerable that I am forced to rise when I may not have otherwise. It burns down the belief structures and operating systems that were already rotting, but that I was too comfortable or too afraid to dismantle. 

The tyrant archetype also serves the protection and advancement of my realm at all costs. It's pure survival drive elevated to conquest. It's the part of me that says, "I will not be destroyed, I will not be controlled, I will TAKE what is mine."

Which is why I need it. 

It's the part of me that will not be diminished, that refuses to be controlled, that has the capacity to destroy what needs destroying in my own life. I need that ferocity. I need that ruthlessness. I need the absolute refusal to be made small.

It seems to me that what we call evil is just negative force. Without both negative and positive forces, life would cease to exist. The tyrant is one such negative force. I can appreciate the necessary destruction it causes, but I will no longer allow it to rule me. I refuse to be afraid of the tyrant within me.

This is my realm, and I say how things are done here.

I consult with my advisors. I commune with life. I always intend for the outcome that serves the highest.  But even as I write these words, it’s clear to me that Life is always serving the highest, even when it doesn't look like it. If life permits it, then there is a purpose for it. If there weren’t, it wouldn't exist. I do not believe the intelligence that creates the miracle of life makes mistakes. It's all serving, even if I can't understand how or why.

Therefore, it is safe to trust in my callings, my tastes, my preferences, and the things I wish to experience - especially now, in active relationship with life and with a deep commitment to integrating the tyrant and all other archetypes.  

I can have great reverence for the mysteries, and also lovingly rule over my domain.

I choose agency, in cahoots with Life.

This is not power over or power under. This is power with.

This is my life, and the tyrant works for me.