Thoughts

Power begins where it becomes more important to us that another person match our ideas than that they be who they really are. Sometimes this happens even with the best intentions, “for their own good.” But the result is the same: a living person turns into a category – one of us or a stranger, strong or weak, useful or useless. Categories are convenient, but people feel cramped in them. They change, they have their own reasons, wishes and fears.

Influencing others is normal. What is more, it cannot be avoided: by merely existing we already affect those around us, whether we want to or not. We can ask, object, set boundaries, say “this doesn’t work for me.” The difference between power and influence lies in whether the other remains, for us, a separate and free person. A request acknowledges that they may say no. Power does not allow for that.

That is why power, at its core, tries to impose its own version of reality on others. And this is its inner contradiction. To hold its position, the person in power must look as if they understand what they are doing and know better than anyone what needs to be done. But to admit that they don’t know something or have made a mistake would put the position itself at risk. People around them sense this and adapt: they bring what is convenient and stay silent about what is not. So power meets the consequences of its decisions less and less. In the end, the more confidently someone performs understanding, the less they actually see. The self-deception of power is not that it lies to others, but that it is forced to lie to itself.

Mindfulness moves in the opposite direction. It is not a renunciation of goals and desires, but a readiness to see the other as they are now, with their reasons, fears and the right to disagree. From this contact we can ask, argue, negotiate, and even part ways. But decisions are made on the basis of reality, not its convenient version.

After difficult or traumatic events in life it is easy to get stuck in threat mode. When everything around is on fire, there is no time to talk with yourself. We switch on total inner power: we turn ourselves from a living person into a mechanism for putting out disasters and hand out harsh directives – pull yourself together, don’t whine, function.

In this mode, dialogue with ourselves shuts off completely. But why do we stay in it for years, even when the fire was put out long ago?

Low self-esteem and the habit of seeing ourselves as not enough have a hidden benefit.

As long as I sincerely believe there is something wrong with me, that I am weak, immature or broken, I keep the clear status of an object. And an object can and must be managed. An object doesn’t need sympathy, it needs training. It doesn’t need to find meaning, it needs to follow orders.

An object is predictable. It doesn’t have to be trusted, it is enough to control it.

It seems to us that believing in ourselves means gaining strength. But for our inner controller, recognizing a subject in ourselves is a risk. Because it means losing total power over ourselves.

To recognize our own agency is to accept that I am not a machine for carrying out tasks, but a living person. That I have a will of my own, limits of endurance, fatigue and pain. That I can no longer simply order myself to go and do, without regard for my inner state.

As soon as we stop seeing ourselves as an object for repair, the regime of harsh orders collapses. You cannot treat a subject like an object. With a subject, you have to negotiate.

And inner dialogue always contains uncertainty. It requires vulnerability, risk, and giving up the illusion that we can fully control every step and every emotion.

Low self-esteem keeps us in the safe cage of hypercontrol. We are afraid to believe in our strength, because strength will require us to stop treating ourselves as an object to be rescued.

Real trust in ourselves begins not with another push of willpower, but with a readiness to loosen our grip, to hand back the powers of the inner overseer, and to risk entering a gentle dialogue with ourselves.

Where I end and you begin

People talk about personal boundaries a lot these days.
Usually in the context of protection: how not to let others violate your space, not to give in to pressure, not to deal with “toxic” people.
That is an important part, but not the whole story.

Personal boundaries are not only a shield, but also a map.
They show where I end and another person begins.
This is not always obvious. We grow up in families where we were often taught to adapt, to endure, to guess, to “be good.” As adults we may either defend ourselves to the point of rigidity or, on the contrary, dissolve again into other people’s expectations.
Both are a sign that our boundaries have not been recognized.

If we understand them rightly, it is all fairly simple:
you do what you can and want to do;
and where your will meets the will of another, a dialogue begins, an agreement, a free choice.

This is the adult form of contact, when no one compels anyone, even if one is stronger, older or higher in status.

But in reality it is more complicated.
We live in a world where the illusion of power over others is almost the norm.
A manager believes they can “own” their subordinates.
A politician, the people.
A partner, a partner.
A parent, a child.

Yet submission is always a choice.
Even when it seems there is no choice, there remains at least an inner decision: to agree or not.
Any power rests on consent, even if it is extracted by manipulation or fear.

So to speak about boundaries is to say not only “do not violate mine,”
but also “do not take on other people’s.”
Do not rescue, do not control, do not decide for others, do not impose yourself where you are not asked.

Respecting boundaries is a form of respect for life.
Your own and another’s.

Research in recent years describes dozens of ways in which people waste psychic energy: endless news scrolling, procrastination, rumination.

But behind all these forms stands not laziness or addiction, but an attempt to cope with inner pain.

When a conversation becomes unpleasant, a hand reaches for the phone.
When work irritates us, we look for distraction.
When life loses its taste, inner noise switches on: thoughts, doubts, endless “I should have.”
These are unconscious ways of suppressing pain, not of understanding it.

We rarely ask where this pain comes from.
More often we simply look for a way not to feel.
Like a person with a toothache who, instead of seeing a dentist, applies a tincture just to feel better.
The body calms down for a minute, but the inflammation remains.

Modern culture nudges us toward this.
Pain has been normalized: “everyone’s struggling, get used to it.”
We live in a society where inner discomfort is considered a natural background, not a signal that something is wrong: in the system, in relationships, in our own beliefs.
And as long as pain is considered “normal,” a person looks not for the cause but for a painkiller.

The problem is not only in the ways we avoid pain.
The problem is in how we perceive pain itself.
Evolution created pain as a protective mechanism: acute pain helps us survive – we pull our hand away from a hot kettle.
But chronic, psychological pain – anxiety, guilt, tension, helplessness – works differently: it doesn’t save us, it slowly wears us down.
The organism lives in a mode of constant threat, cortisol levels rise, the body tenses, the mind grows tired.

The way out is not to suppress this pain, but to relate to it with awareness.
The ability to notice: I am hurting,
to understand: why exactly,
and to recognize that pain is not an enemy but a signal of disagreement between how I live and what I truly need.
Only from this does real healing begin, and the return of energy.

We often talk about love as if it were a story about feelings.
Yet if we look closely, there is always another layer in it: power.

In childhood this is natural: a child depends entirely on a parent.
The parent decides what to eat, when to sleep, where to go.
This power is justified, because the child cannot yet take responsibility for themselves.

In time the dependence weakens.
If the parent is healthy enough, they gradually step back, handing the child the right to their own decisions, doubts and mistakes.
Love remains, but its form changes: less control, more respect.
This is how maturity is born, in the child and in the parent alike.

Research confirms that where autonomy is supported, where a child feels that their choices matter, more inner stability and less anxiety develop.
By contrast, when power is not released (even with the best of intentions), dependence, guilt and difficulty building relationships between equals grow up.
Then love gets confused with submission, and closeness with control.

To love without possessing is to see in the other not a source of satisfaction, but a being who can suffer and rejoice just as you do.
When such children grow up, they look not so much for love as for the familiar feeling of power.
Some want to be the ones who submit, others the ones who rule.
In both cases it is not a meeting of two adults, but a continuation of an old plot: “who is in charge here.”

But love needs no bosses.
It does not demand power, because it rests not on the fear of loss but on trust in the other’s freedom.
It is not the absence of connection, but a refusal to manage it.

Mature attachment does not contradict the idea of non-possession; it only gives it an emotional structure.
Mature love is like breathing: it neither holds nor lets go, it simply flows.
It does not cancel attachment; it makes it steady.

As research shows, the more secure the attachment, the less the wish to control.
Inner safety does not destroy connection; it makes letting go possible.

Perhaps real closeness begins where
we stop possessing each other,
but do not stop being near.

In everyday speech, responsibility sounds like an unquestioned virtue. We strive to be “responsible” and praise others for it. But not every kind of responsibility does us good: sometimes it is a source of maturity and freedom, and sometimes a heavy burden that pushes us toward guilt and vanity.

When responsibility is built on fear and excessive control, it becomes distorted and toxic. A person takes on more than is really within their power, and ties both successes and mistakes directly to their own worth. When things go well, this can breed vanity: “it’s all thanks to me.” When they go badly, it breeds crushing guilt and shame: “I’m bad, it’s all my fault.” In both cases, responsibility stops being a resource and becomes a source of pressure.

Another form of responsibility rests on values and clarity. Mindful (healthy) responsibility is built on an understanding of the limits of our control: a person takes part in a web of causes and effects, acknowledges their role, but does not confuse it with what lies beyond them – other people’s feelings, chance circumstances, the influence of others. This stance opens space for gratitude – because success is always the result of many factors – and for compassion – because mistakes become experience, not a brand.

Toxic responsibility feeds guilt and shame.
Healthy responsibility feeds gratitude and compassion.

So an understanding of our inner resources (mindfulness, flexibility, resilience, self-regulation) and of outer conditions (clear boundaries, room for making decisions, fair consequences) helps us develop a mature form of responsibility. The Buddhist principle of non-self supports this process further: recognizing the impermanence of the “I” and the interdependence of all things reduces our tendency toward inflated responsibility and lets us take part in life with clarity, care and compassion.

Most destructive acts do not begin with ill intent. More often we are driven by good intentions.
We look for joy, calm, recognition, closeness. But under the pressure of stress our inner compass loses its accuracy. And then even good intentions take us somewhere quite different.

A parent shouts at a child because they want the child to do better at school. A person gets behind the wheel after drinking, not for the sake of a catastrophe, but for euphoria and oblivion. An employee goes years without a vacation, striving for success and stability.
The goals are good. But the course drifts. Instead of growth comes burnout, instead of closeness, fear and distance, instead of relief, tragedy.

Research shows that under stress people act out of habit and stop noticing consequences (Schwabe & Wolf, 2011). Elevated cortisol weakens the prefrontal cortex, the center of self-control and planning (Arnsten, 2009). In other words, stress not only drains our strength, it changes our route, without our even noticing.

This holds true on both the individual and the social level. A person can justify their destructive behavior without noticing how it leads to tragedy. In the same way, a society can sustain or even encourage destructive patterns, making stress part of the norm.

On the global level we may have no chance of influencing the situation. All the more so since the modern agenda often works to increase stress, through manipulation, stoking anxiety, creating a sense of threat and scarcity. But we do keep a real possibility of managing our own stress and not passing it on. This shows up in simple things: not writing an angry comment, not honking irritably at the car ahead at a traffic light, being more patient with other people’s mistakes. Small gestures lower the level of tension around us and make the space safer for everyone.

Managing stress is not a luxury or a privilege. It is a necessity if we truly want to move where we intend to go, rather than end up at a point where tension has quietly led us.
But it is important to remember: managing our own stress is not a panacea. We cannot relieve the tension of the whole world, and we should not turn care for others into self-sacrifice. What is needed here is a sensible balance: compassion for others must be combined with care for ourselves. Only then does stress stop destroying and begin to help us move forward.

Impermanence is a natural part of life.
Emotions come and go. Reality changes. Our relationships and our bodies do not stay the same. However much events or everyday troubles may upset us, everything is temporary.

“Don’t worry, it will pass.” There is some truth in that. But more often such words become a way to distract ourselves or to reduce contact with what is happening. They leave no room for real presence and do not help us understand the process of change more deeply, and so they bring no relief.

In a number of modern psychological approaches, impermanence is considered with particular care.
Emotions, thoughts and bodily sensations are fluid and changeable. Mindfulness teaches us to notice this at the level of breath and body: how tension comes and goes, how the breath becomes shallow or deep. This is not merely observing thoughts, but living through experience. ACT compares experiences to clouds and waves: they come and go, and we can stay beside them. Compassion-focused therapy shows that recognizing change, in ourselves and in others, brings gentleness and attentiveness rather than suppression.

Here the difference between understanding and awareness matters.
Understanding is knowledge: “emotions change,” “everything passes.”
Awareness is the joining of knowledge with bodily and emotional experience. We can understand logically that everything is temporary, that life is finite, that one day we will die. But to become aware of this means to live through the feelings that arise on touching this reality: anxiety, fear, sadness. Awareness of impermanence is not just agreement with the facts, but living through these difficult emotions.

In other words, understanding is like looking at a road map. Awareness is walking those roads, feeling the climbs and descents, the wind and the path underfoot. Meditation shows this very clearly: every breath, every change in the body is a chance to notice and feel the change, without trying to stop it.

Recognizing impermanence does not make us happy. But it creates space for gentleness and presence. It lets us experience our states fully, without denying them. It is not a promise that “everything will be fine,” but a sober view: everything that happens to us is changeable and temporary.

Sometimes it feels as though we carry the world on our shoulders. Our sense of responsibility reaches far beyond our real power. It resembles the fate of mythical Atlas: he holds up the vault of the heavens and cannot refuse the burden.

In such moments we feel: “If the world suffers, it’s our fault.” Guilt becomes total. But behind this pain hides not only suffering but also a fantasy of grandeur. After all, if we are to blame for everything, then we must be all-powerful. To give up this omnipotence is to admit our limits. And that is especially hard when we are exhausted. Sometimes the illusion of power, however false, feels like the last thing we have left.

This position has a flip side: vulnerability to manipulation. Our guilt turns into fuel that is easy to use:

• “If we don’t suffer for the whole people, we are traitors.”
• “If we loved our partner enough, he or she would be happy.”
• “Since we understand how deep the problems go, it is our duty to solve them.”

The more we try to atone for this guilt, the more we confirm our own “omnipotence.” The circle closes, and the weight of the world presses down even harder.

The way out lies in mindfulness. Responsibility is always proportionate to power. We cannot hold up the world, but we can carry our own part. Letting go of the illusion of omnipotence is not surrender but a return to reality. It is a step that frees us and makes us steadier.

The world does not rest on our shoulders, and other people’s happiness does not lie in our palms, whatever it may seem. But if we look more closely, we may find responsibility for our own life – and it is proportionate to our means.

Nature is a remarkable engineer. It creates incredibly complex systems, but rarely starts over. Its task is not to make things perfect or convenient. Its goal is simpler: to ensure survival. If a design works, even imperfectly, it stays.

Our brain is a clear example. It was not designed “from scratch” but developed in layers, each adding new capacities to what already existed. The deep, ancient structures, which we loosely call the “reptilian brain,” govern breathing, heart rhythm, basic instincts and automatic reactions. They appeared millions of years ago and still perform indispensable functions. On top of them, over the course of evolution, the cerebral cortex formed, and in humans the prefrontal cortex developed especially strongly, the area that allows us to plan, analyze, anticipate and hold complex goals.

Two approaches to life live side by side in one brain. One is instant, automatic, focused on the present moment. The other is slow, analytical, able to take distant consequences into account. Sometimes they work in harmony: for example, when we react quickly to danger and then make sense of what happened. But often they come into conflict. We may impulsively do something for a short-term gain, and then spend a long time wondering why it was a mistake.

The ancient mechanisms have not disappeared. They activate quickly, often before we have time to think, and sometimes steer our behavior more than we realize. This is especially noticeable under stress: the older parts of the brain take over, and the work of the prefrontal cortex declines. Modern life is arranged so that stress is rarely an exception; it has become more of a background. And this means we act reactively even more often, even where the situation calls for a conscious approach.

This, perhaps, is the main contradiction. We live in an era that demands the qualities of the new brain, yet we carry within us a foundation built for entirely different conditions. Nature is in no hurry to redesign us, and perhaps never will be. But understanding this inner architecture already gives us a chance to make a little more sense of our own reactions and to find a balance between them.