"Environment is stronger than willpower." — Paramahansa Yogananda, The Essence of Self-Realization, Ch. 19

When I first read this quote by Paramahansa Yogananda—the swami from India who built one of the first lasting yoga institutions in the West, in the 1920s—I had to read it twice. I had been familiar with Yogananda's teachings for over a decade and was a regular practitioner of his meditation techniques. Yet, the statement felt bold, perhaps even contradictory to everything I had understood about willpower until that moment.

Yogic traditions tend to place immense importance on willpower. Yogananda himself long preached the necessity of developing and maintaining it. He taught: "Will is the switch that controls everything in this universe. If you don't exercise your willpower, you will be a weakling, easily influenced by your environment." Or: "If you cling to a certain thought with dynamic willpower, it finally assumes a tangible outward form... When you make up your mind to do good things, you will accomplish them if you use dynamic willpower to follow through. No matter what the circumstances are, if you go on trying, God will create the means by which your will shall find its proper reward."

But the contradiction dissolves the moment you read this quote in its full context. In The Essence of Self-Realization, Yogananda arrives at it through an image: a coat left in a smoke-filled room will carry that smell for a long time afterward, while one left out in a garden carries the fragrance of open air instead. Whatever we sit inside of, he suggests, we eventually absorb—whether we choose to or not. He goes on to say that mixing with a worldly, negative environment without taking on any of that worldliness "requires great spiritual strength" (Ch. 19, p. 182)—a strength so rare that he counsels seeking good company rather than relying on it. "Be always with people who inspire you," as he put it elsewhere, "surround yourself with people who lift you up."

Strip away the specifically monastic framing—the talk of "beginners on the spiritual path" and "devotees"—and what's left is a broader, sturdier truth: none of us, however disciplined, is exempt from what we're steeped in. A nervous system asked to sit for years inside an environment built on accusations, subtle insults, and gaslighting will carry that residue, the same way the coat carries smoke. That isn't a failure of will. It's simply what environments do. The truest exercise of "dynamic willpower," then, isn't gritting your teeth inside a hostile one—it's the will to change what you're sitting inside of in the first place.

Why am I discussing this on a blog about recovery from emotional abuse?

Because we often downplay the necessity of going 'no-contact' with an abuser. We convince ourselves that with enough determination, we can manage the relationship and keep it at least satisfactory. Even when we realise that no-contact is the ideal, we are often forced into scenarios where it is simply not feasible. In those moments of 'minimal-contact,' we fall into the trap of believing that it is possible to maintain a yogic-like calm indefinitely. We think that if we just apply enough discipline, we can withstand their continuous accusations, subtle insults, and gaslighting for long periods of time, purely through the strength of our own will.

Personally, I have been guilty of this. I used to assume that if I lost my center after three weeks of continuous, malicious hints—during periods where I couldn't avoid close contact—it must have been a personal failing. I blamed myself for not being "spiritually advanced" enough to act as a detached yogini, possessing perfect self-mastery.

It would be easy to read those three weeks as proof that I simply needed a stronger will—that with more discipline, I could have lasted a fourth week, or a fifth. But that reading misunderstands what was actually being asked of me. Yogananda himself acknowledged that resisting immersion in negativity without being changed by it calls for an exceptional spiritual strength, one that even sincere practitioners may not carry in every season of their life. My three weeks weren't a measurement of a weak will. They were proof that I was asking an ordinary tool to perform an extraordinary task it was never suited for.

But this self-blame is simply the final layer of the abuse. That 'not being enough'—not calm enough, not evolved enough—is a narrative carefully embedded in my psyche over years of manipulation. By framing my struggle as a lack of spiritual mastery, I was merely continuing the abuser's work of making me the architect of my own suffering.

I was missing the fundamental truth in Yogananda's other assertion: Environment is stronger than willpower.

When you are submerged in an environment of toxicity, you are not failing because you lack will; you are failing because you are a human being trying to remain whole in an environment designed to dismantle you.

We can finally release the weight of blaming our own willpower for the toll that a toxic environment takes on our nervous system. There is no 'weakness' in needing to remove yourself from the source of your pain; true self-mastery begins the moment you realise that your environment is the foundation of your growth.

For those of you who, right now, cannot step fully into no-contact—shared children, family ties, a workplace you can't yet leave—this teaching still has something to offer you. If you cannot always change the room you're standing in, you can still guard what you allow entry into your inner one: the boundaries you hold, the support you lean on, the moments you protect as fiercely as your own breath. It isn't the ideal environment. But it is still an act of tending your environment, at whatever scale is available to you right now—and that, too, is dynamic willpower at work.

Healing isn't about becoming so 'spiritually advanced' that you can withstand toxicity without a scratch—it is about having the grace to step away from the fire, so you no longer have to burn. You deserve a foundation that allows you to finally be whole.

Trigger Warning: This post contains information that could be triggering to someone with a history of emotional abuse. Please proceed cautiously and feel free to stop reading and take a few deep breaths if any of this feels like too much.

The textbook examples of gaslighting involve confronting the abuser about their behavior, only to have them deny reality and potentially reverse the attack. For example, if you point out that they yelled at you, they might calmly respond, "I never raised my voice, you are the one who is shouting." (I once heard a psychologist say that if you ever find yourself wishing you could record every conversation you have with someone, it is a strong indicator that you are dealing with a manipulator.)

However, there are also more subtle instances of gaslighting—ones that don't unfold as an outright argument over what happened, but as something stranger: an exchange you live through and, at the time, accept as ordinary. This is one of the disorienting realities of narcissistic abuse—while you are inside it, these moments don't register as dysfunctional at all. They simply become "how things are." It is only once you have stepped back emotionally—which, more often than not, means you have stepped back physically as well—that you can look at these same exchanges and finally see them for what they are. This is also why these instances can resurface during periods of minimal contact: by the time you're forced into occasional contact with the person again, you have usually already gained the emotional distance needed to notice what you couldn't see before.

I will provide a few examples of these sneaky instances, all based on true stories. Surely, little by little, you will be able to recognise the unique ones that are played, or have been played, in your relationship.
Example 1: The "Invisible" Reality

You spot a small spider and, because you are afraid, you ask the person to get rid of it. They start by saying it isn't true; that you always "see insects around even if they are not there" (implying you are insane and hallucinating). Then, you point at the insect from a distance. They say they don't see it. You get closer and continue to point. "See?" you say. "It's right there." "I can't see it," they respond very calmly. You get even closer and point again. They look at you with a raised eyebrow and say, "I am sorry, maybe it's just me having some eyesight problems. But I really can't see it." In the meantime, that spider is merrily continuing to create its web.

The Dynamic: By denying the existence of something right in front of your eyes, they force you into a state of sensory confusion. It makes you question if your eyes—or your brain—are functioning correctly. This creates a foundation where they become the "source of truth" while you are left feeling untrustworthy and unhinged.

Example 2: Creating Deliberate Confusion

You ask a question, and they answer a completely different one. When you point out that they are not giving the information you requested, they raise their voice, continue to shout the wrong answer, or throw a tantrum.

Scenario 1: You are planning to go somewhere new and have a doubt about the route. Before leaving, you ask, "After the first roundabout, should I turn right or stay on the main road?" They reply, "No, you turn left at the oil station." You realize they have a different route in mind, but that won't work for you because you need to make a stop along the way. You calmly ask again, "In the route with the roundabout, what should I do? Should I turn right or keep on the main road?" Instead of answering, they lose their temper and yell that they have already told you to turn left at the oil station.

Scenario 2: You are about to head out, and the other person says, "Remember to take the car keys." You say, "OK," and then casually ask, "Do you think we should also bring the reusable shopping bags, in case we stop at the supermarket?" They respond, seemingly to your question: "I already told you, they're on the shelf by the front door." You pause—the shelf by the front door is where the keys are, not the bags. You clarify: "I'm asking about the bags, not the keys." They raise their voice: "I heard you. I said they're on the shelf." The conversation now revolves entirely around defending which object was being discussed, and your simple, practical suggestion about the bags is left unanswered—and, eventually, forgotten.

The Dynamic: The goal is not simply to avoid your question, but to make you feel that your need for clarity is the problem. By answering a completely different question or intentionally misinterpreting you, the other person manufactures chaos. When you try to steer the conversation back to the actual topic, they escalate to force you to drop it. This leaves you feeling frustrated, silenced, and—most importantly—confused.

Example 3: The Erasure of Shared Reality

They ask you to prepare a coffee. Since the machine hasn't been used for some time, they ask you to discard the first two cups and give them the third. You do as requested. They are in the room right in front of the kitchen, and because the coffee machine makes quite a bit of noise, you assume they heard you making coffee three times. When you kindly bring them the coffee, they raise their voice in frustration: "Did you actually throw away the first two coffees? I told you to only give me the third!" When you ask, "Didn't you hear me make three coffees on a loud machine five meters away?" they reply with the same seraphic tone they used when claiming not to see a black spider on a white wall right under their nose: "No, really, I didn't hear any noise."

The Dynamic: This is a denial of shared sensory experience. By ignoring obvious, audible evidence, the abuser forces you to defend your reality. When they refuse to acknowledge what just happened, you begin to doubt your own perception. It makes you question if you are truly "too sensitive" or "hallucinating," creating an agonising cognitive dissonance between what you know to be true and the version of reality they demand you accept.

Example 4: The Preemptive Accusation of Incompetence

They repeat an instruction multiple times as if one time were not enough for you to understand. For instance, just as with the car keys, they might tell you to take the keys three or four times before leaving the house, even if they have clearly heard the sound of you picking them up or even watched you do it while standing directly in front of you.

The Dynamic: This acts as a subtle, constant belittlement. By acting as though you lack the basic cognitive ability to follow a single instruction, they slowly dismantle your self-esteem. It forces you to accept the role of someone who is "forgetful" or "incapable," which makes it easier for them to control or override your future actions.Example 5: False Attribution of Incompetence

Example 5: False Attribution of Incompetence

You are parking the car, but you suddenly notice a new leaflet hung on the outside wall near the parking spot. You stop to read it, thinking it might warn you not to park there. The abuser says, "It's just a reminder for people to collect their dog's waste," and then they quickly shout, "Why are you parking so far from the sidewalk? Can't you just park the right way?" Of course, you had simply stopped the parking maneuver midway to read the leaflet; you weren't actually parked.

The Dynamic: This is contextual manipulation and mischaracterisation. By deliberately ignoring the context of your behavior—that you were mid-action, not finished parking—the abuser reframes your actions as incompetence. You find yourself spending your energy defending your basic competence, and eventually, you may stop questioning the "rules" of the environment entirely, assuming, little by little, that the constant complaints about your behaviour must be grounded in some actual fault of yours.

Seeing these patterns for what they are—calculated maneuvers rather than personal failings—is the first step toward regaining your clarity. Once you can label the behaviour as it is happening, you strip it of its power to make you doubt your own mind.

A few days ago, a provocative post caught my eye while I was scrolling. I read it quickly and didn't think to note the creator's name, yet the core message lingered with me. The idea was something like this: "You cannot truly reconnect with your authentic self if you were raised in a coercive environment, because in such an environment your authentic self didn't even have a chance to develop-- and therefore, you now have nothing to reconnect to."

At first glance, this perspective might sound reasonable. The argument suggests that if you were systematically forced to turn away from your own voice and desires as a child, your true essence never had the space or time to form. Therefore, as an adult, there is simply nothing left inside to return to.

Let me respectfully dissent.

Many people on the path of individuation—the slow, psychological process of separating who we actually are from who we were conditioned to be—grew up in deeply narcissistic environments. If you are one of the "lucky" ones who had a parent or guardian like this, you already know the cost. You were molded to fulfill their desires, their expectations, or their unlived lives instead of your own. And often, they didn't even need to voice these expectations directly—you learned to sense them anyway, adjusting yourself in advance to whatever you believed would win their love, aligning yourself with wishes that were never actually spoken aloud. In some cases, you have internalised their voices to the extent that they have become the first and automatic voice in your mind, quickly bringing you back onto their predetermined tracks. This might have dictated your studies, your career, your relationships, or your entire way of being in, and expressing, yourself. Now, as an adult, you are standing at a crossroads. You want to hear your own voice. You want to live a life that actually belongs to you, rather than wearing a script that someone else forced you to put on.

But that internet argument leaves a heavy shadow of doubt. You might find yourself wondering: "If I was denied the right to naturally evolve into my true self from the very beginning, does that mean it is impossible to evolve into my true self now?"

My response is a resounding no. No, it is not impossible. It is difficult, yes. It is a massive challenge. But it is not impossible.

Healing requires you to separate the loud, external voices of your past from your own quiet voice inside. Let's be precise about what does and doesn't need to grow here. Your identity—the outward shape you give to your life and the way you express yourself—develops over time growing up. (This is true for everyone, regardless of the environment they have been raised in. What can go wrong, for those of us raised in narcissistic environments, is the direction it took—shaped by someone else's compass instead of our own.) The inner voice underneath it, though, the one that holds your real desires, your true likes and dislikes, never needed to grow or evolve. It didn't need to be built. It simply was. What needs developing now is not the voice itself, but your relationship with it: learning how to listen to it again, how to trust what it tells you, and how to move past the reflexive tension you feel the moment you consider following it—the tension planted by the internalised voice of your abuser, always ready to insist that this hobby, that job, this way of dressing, is useless, ridiculous, or beneath you.

This is an important distinction to hold onto: what your environment shaped, molded, and coerced was never your true self. It was the false identity you built around it—the persona assembled, plank by plank, for the sole purpose of securing the love and approval of the people who controlled your world. That persona absolutely bears the fingerprints of your upbringing. Your true self does not.

That voice has always been there.

If you look back closely, it already spoke to you in the quiet corners of your childhood—and it often revealed itself in contrast to your environment, not because of it. Perhaps your family gathered around one kind of story every night, yet something in you came alive the one time you stumbled onto something else entirely—a spark that had nothing to do with what you were being shown, and everything to do with who you already were. It was there in the games you loved to play when no one was watching, the types of movies you secretly leaned toward, or the stories that made your chest tighten with wonder, only to be told afterward that such things were silly, impractical, or a waste of your time.

It was there in those fragile moments when you were just doing what felt good—dancing, dressing a certain way, talking about a new interest—only to be instantly ridiculed, shamed, or scolded with inexplicable rage.

Even if you gave up, surrendered, and did what you were told just to survive, that pilot light never actually went out. And you don't need a perfect memory of when it first flickered in order to find it again. If you can't clearly recall a "before," you can still reach it in the present, through the body rather than through the mind. Ask yourself a simple question—do I like this? how does this make me feel?—about something small, right now, and then wait. Not for an answer in your thoughts, which are still crowded with old voices, but for a signal in your body: a loosening, a warmth, a lightness, or their opposite—a tightening, a heaviness, a retreat. That felt sense, patiently practiced, will gradually lead you back to the same place those childhood memories point to, even without the memories themselves.

Once you do, the internalised voice of the abuser will quickly pop up in your head. And this is part of the challenge. It requires separating the raw feeling of pleasure and alignment you derive from following your True Self, from the strict, authoritative diktat of that internalised voice. It also requires paying attention to the sly tricks of this voice, which tends to rationalise everything (don't do this because it's stupid, don't do that because it will be useless, keep playing it safe so your friends will still like you).

Awareness about toxic dynamics has never spread this quickly. I believe we are truly fortunate to live in times where this is possible. Concepts that describe relational imbalance, psychological manipulation, and boundary violations are now part of our common vocabulary. Our parents and grandparents did not possess this level of awareness. We know all too well what that lack of language implied for their generation, both personally and societally—where dynamics of control were normalised within families and systemic subjugation went unchallenged.

Today, this awareness is so pervasive that it has escaped the strict confines of psychology and psychiatry. We encounter it in the most unexpected spaces. For instance, while taking a web design course some time ago, the lecturer advised us to avoid clients who constantly try to undermine our worth, devalue our labor, or claim they know the job better than we do just to lower the price. Without explicitly using the clinical terminology, she was describing a classic pattern of entitlement and devaluation.

With the widespread dissemination of this knowledge, we have also witnessed a rise in practitioners, mentors, and virtual coaches dedicated to assisting others through recovery. Many of these guides are moved by the purest altruistic intentions. Like me, they know firsthand what it feels like to be diminished by another, and they understand the psychological traps one must navigate to find freedom. However, a significant challenge arises when this sacred work meets the modern marketplace.

The internet is flooded with recovery content, much of it created with marketing in mind. But digital marketing—especially how it has evolved alongside the social media algorithm—creates systemic issues that no serious seeker of inner freedom should disregard. The algorithm demands constant visibility. It requires creators to perpetually advertise, endlessly generate new content, and keep pushing. And here lies the trap, and it isn't only about what the creator does—it's about what happens in the reader. A post doesn't need to be written with any specific person in mind to land as one. Someone scrolls past a list of "signs you were parentified as a child," or "signs your partner is a covert narcissist," and even in a life that is, by any reasonable measure, going well, a small voice starts searching: did that happen to me? Was that a red flag I missed? The content was general; the self-scrutiny it triggers is not. And because there is always another post, another checklist, another subtler sign to measure yourself against, the search for what might still be wrong with you never quite runs out of material. If the marketing push must be never-ending, then the "healing journey" itself risks becoming a never-ending endeavour for those who seek healing—not necessarily because any single creator intends it, but because perpetual content and perpetual self-examination feed each other perfectly.

The risk is that we begin to view healing as an eternal sentence—a distant North Star to chase with starry eyes and open mouths, or a shiny badge of honour to wear on our jackets. But healing is not an ideology. To someone who has lived within the mental cage of psychological abuse, healing is beautifully simple: it is the quiet capacity to function in an authentic way, day by day. It happens softly, without the need for grandiose acts or perpetual processing. And this is precisely what separates true healing from the trap we've been describing: if you are genuinely functioning well day by day, you are not spending your energy endlessly re-examining yourself, hunting for hidden wounds, or cross-checking your life against someone else's checklist. That kind of relentless self-analysis can look like diligence, even like virtue—but for many survivors, it is simply the abuser's old voice wearing new, therapeutic language: you are not enough, you have to push more, there is still something wrong with you that you haven't found yet. Real healing doesn't sound like that voice. It is quieter than that.

For this reason, we must remember that while our role as mentors and peers is a professional vocation, this work is only successful when our ultimate goal is the independence of the individual. True recovery means a person is capable of feeling their own emotions, making their own choices, and moving through life from a space of inner peace—not becoming dependent on a new system or a new guide.

I have lived this from the other side too, as someone who once needed—and received—more support than I do today. And I hope for the same shift, eventually, for anyone who ever works with me. If a person finishes their path with me and simply doesn't need to come back, I don't experience that as a loss. I experience it as proof that the work did exactly what it was meant to do. There will always be someone else who still needs the door open.

The true guide, coach, or spiritual practitioner is the one who accompanies you on the journey back to yourself, not on a never-ending journey to them.