The Mechanisms: Reclaiming Your Agency

Why We Cannot Recognize the Influences We Were Never Taught to See

Content Warning: This article discusses religious trauma, high-control religious environments, spiritual abuse, coercive influence, manipulation, and the use of theological authority. It also includes personal reflections that some readers—particularly those with religious trauma or experiences in high-control religious communities—may find distressing. Throughout the article, I also use analogies involving battle and warfare, as well as occasional religious language and phrasing when discussing my experiences and the concepts being examined. Please read at your own pace, take breaks when needed, and prioritize your well-being.

How can we recognize an influence if we have never been taught that it exists? How can we adjust our thinking, question our assumptions, or make more informed decisions if we do not understand the mechanisms influencing us in the first place?

Knowledge does not eliminate influence, but it gives us the opportunity to recognize it. The more we understand about psychology, cognition, emotion, persuasion, social influence, and narrative framing, the more informed our agency becomes. We cannot remove every influence acting upon us, but we can become more aware of it.

Without that knowledge, we operate at an informational and emotional disadvantage. What’s worse is that we are often completely unaware that the disadvantage exists. This makes us unknowingly vulnerable to outside influences. As a result, influence can shape our thinking, our choices, the way we receive information, and how we perceive the world around us, and all without our conscious awareness. Even if we possess some intuitive or tacit understanding that something feels wrong, we may not have the vocabulary or conceptual framework to explain what we are experiencing or know how to respond to it. We are more vulnerable to influences we do not recognize because we lack the conceptual tools to identify and evaluate them.

Does this feel familiar?

I remember feeling like things weren’t quite right at times, but I didn’t have the words to explain what I was experiencing, nor did I have the conceptual framework to understand what was happening or know what to do next. That becomes even more difficult when asking questions and seeking answers are discouraged or framed as a failure to trust headship or god. 

There are specific situations I will never forget where I completely disagreed with what headship had said. It rocked me to my core. Even with fasting and praying for three days straight, reading the word and seeking guidance, I could not find anything in the scriptures that pointed to what he was instructing was correct. In the end I ended up obeying him. It is one of my single biggest regrets to this day. One of the sad things is that I didn’t realize that what would be framed as rebellion, not obeying him, was even an option. This is devastating and I hope this doesn’t resonate with you, but I fear that most likely it will. 

With constant repetition, along with everything else hijacking our brains and normal thought patterns, the sermons and messages about obeying headship as you would “the lord”, and all of the compounding mechanisms working together, it becomes incredibly difficult to stand apart and make decisions with our own agency. Especially, when you are taught that your agency is not a good thing. Taught to not trust yourself, your feelings and your thoughts. I believe it is vitally important to learn and understand the mechanisms that are in play. I guess, it’s like the mechanisms are working against us and knowing your opposition is the best way to win a war. A way to not get caught unaware.

Understanding these mechanisms is not about becoming immune to influence. It is unlikely that we will ever recognize every influence or see every angle. What it is about is becoming more aware of how influence works so that our decisions can be made with greater understanding and intention. The more knowledge we arm ourselves with, the better equipped we are to protect our individual agency. After everything that we have been through, we deserve our own agency.

Continue Reading

If this article resonated with you, you may also find these articles helpful:

• Institutional Capture: The Strategy of Narrative Control: Controlling Language and Information
• Institutional Capture: The Invisible Front: How Political Actors Rewrite Reality to Evade Resistance

Continue the investigation

What influences have shaped the way you see yourself and the world, and how many of them have you ever been taught to recognize?

If this article helped you put words to something you have experienced, I encourage you to keep learning. The more we understand the mechanisms that shape our thinking, emotions, and perceptions, the better equipped we become to recognize them in ourselves and others.

If you came from a high-control environment, know that you are not alone. Many of us have spent years trying to understand experiences we could feel but could not explain. My hope is that this series gives you the language, research, and conceptual tools to better understand what happened and, in doing so, helps you reclaim your own informed agency.

If you found this article helpful, consider exploring the related articles below and sharing them with someone who may benefit from them. Understanding these mechanisms is one way we can protect ourselves, support one another, and help others recognize influences they may never have known existed.

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