An essay on influence, confusion, and reconnecting with one’s own voice
Below is a personal reflection, built from direct experiences and subjective observations on how we can sometimes temporarily lose the ability to perceive reality clearly when we come into contact with people or spaces that distort the truth. This is not a scientific analysis, nor an absolute truth, but a hypothesis — an attempt to understand a subtle phenomenon.
I encourage you to read with discernment, filter everything through your own critical lens, and take with you, for exploration, only what resonates.
There are moments in life that resemble nothing familiar.
They are quiet transitions, like a tide withdrawing without announcing the next wave. We might call them “between-worlds spaces” — thresholds where time seems suspended, and meaning quietly rewrites itself. Liminal, fragile spaces where consciousness is in transition.
I reflected that in such moments, when we encounter someone operating from a distorted place — where reality is denied, avoided, or reshaped according to unconscious needs — something can happen that we rarely notice: our system temporarily adopts that way of perceiving reality.
And I don’t mean just empathy or emotional influence, but a subtle form of cognitive contamination. What I noticed, looking inward carefully, is that we begin to see the world through the other person’s filter. Not because their filter convinces us rationally — but because an automatic, nearly invisible mechanism activates: a form of relational (self)hypnosis.
Perhaps it happens because, at a deep level, some part of us longs to maintain the connection with that person.
As someone passionate about understanding the psyche and life, I find it fascinating that this is possible. That we have such capacity to adapt and connect to another being’s experience. Remarkable, the way the psyche can survive under the most challenging conditions.
But we rarely consider the price paid: clarity.
Adaptation is, as many therapeutic schools convey, a relational survival strategy. Our psyche has learned that connection is vital. And sometimes, faced with the risk of losing the relationship (or its tension), discernment gives way to affective continuity.
For a long time, I wondered exactly how this happens. So I created space. I zoomed in. I sharpened my differentiation filters as much as possible and began to notice the finest details.
And I began to see the “signs”:
– words that slip,
– strange slips of the tongue,
– a sense of confusion without a clear cause,
– ringing in the ears,
– a headache that hovers without warning.
I realized that our system reacts to distortion. The body reacts to distortion..
But if we don’t know what our inner voice looks like in clarity, we may not realize that we are already “under influence.”
I reflected from multiple angles that in such moments, we don’t just absorb the other’s emotional state, but also their distortion function. And this manifests inside us as a subtle voice that weakens trust, displaces meaning, and disrupts the ability to see things as they are — that is, to maintain a direct and personal connection with reality.
In its extreme form, the world no longer feels like a space of safety and growth, but a battlefield. And we don’t know why.
But there is another fascinating component: energetic, physical — frequencies and the law of resonance.
I noticed, with a mixture of amazement and amusement, that after spending time with people who distort reality, even the strange people on the street seemed to have something to share with me. People who previously would have crossed to the other side of the sidewalk now seemed provoked by my mere presence. And it makes sense — I was on their frequency. They “saw” me. So, open path to interaction. And sometimes, conflict.
In these moments, the only real compass is self-knowledge. But not just any self-knowledge. One built in solitude, in uncontaminated spaces, when our field is not influenced by anyone else. Only then can we recognize what is ours and what is not. Only then can we say: this is not me.
It is a slow but vital process.
Because every time we recognize that we have absorbed something foreign and choose to return to ourselves, we become less vulnerable to influences that pull us off our path. And more anchored in our own truth.
And that, in itself, is a form of freedom.
What I learned, with great difficulty, is that — unfortunately or fortunately — we cannot save anyone. Not even if asked. Perhaps especially then.
Here, subtly, enter concepts like karma and free will. Life “punishes” gently but firmly when we meddle where we don’t belong. There is a limit we cannot cross without consequences.
But we can save ourselves.
Survival may not mean confronting the other — but ceasing to harm ourselves by trying to save people who are not ready for what we wish to live with them.
And that was, by far, the hardest lesson of my life.
Because yes, it is a form of aggression to try to pull someone out of their state when they are not ready to leave it. Even when done “with the best intentions.”
I also discovered that not all closures are possible externally. Some closures are internal — born when we manage to see clearly who we are and who we are not. When we no longer confuse our pain with that of others. When we choose, with respect, to give others the space and time needed to manage their own pain in the way they feel capable. Even if it is not the way we would do it.
Perhaps, ultimately, that is what a healthy boundary truly means: not the withdrawal of love, but the withdrawal of the projection that we can save.
Because no matter how much love we offer, it cannot fill the emptiness left by the love someone cannot give themselves. We cannot do the inner work for anyone. We cannot choose for others.
We can only continue on our path.
Trust that those meant to stay, will — if and when they are truly ready.
And that is no longer our responsibility. Nor our choice.
And yet, amidst this subtle chaos, there is something that cannot be taken from us: the capacity to return to ourselves.
Mindfulness, in its simplest form, is nothing more than a conscious choice to be present, moment by moment, in our authentic reality. It is a gentle process of reconnecting with our inner voice, with our body, with our sensations and thoughts, without fleeing from or denying them.
When we wish to see beyond distortion and reclaim our sense of internal safety, the first step is not complex. It is gentle.
A moment to breathe slowly and consciously.
A hand placed gently over the heart.
A question asked with trust and curiosity:
“What is alive in me now?”
No complex analysis or grand plans. Just presence. And in that presence, the space where true return to self occurs naturally emerges.
Every moment we choose to truly listen to ourselves, reality begins to settle.
Clarity returns.
And with it, peace.
Photo by Jeremy Bishop, published on Unsplash.