Last week my wife and I were sitting on the couch after dinner. She rested her hand on her stomach and said the baby was moving more than usual. She looked tired and excited at the same time, the kind of expression you only see when someone knows life is about to change in a matter of days.
Then she asked me, “What is the one thing you want to instill in our daughter?”
Without hesitating, I said, “I want her to be high agency.”
The speed of that answer surprised me. It came from everything I have spent the last decade unlearning. All the ways I used to outsource my emotional regulation. All the ways I shaped myself around other people’s expectations. All the ways I felt responsible for the emotional climate of whatever room I walked into.
Agency is the opposite of that.
The Opposite of Agency
The opposite of agency is enmeshment. It forms when the boundaries inside a system collapse and you become fused with the people around you. Their emotions become yours. Their expectations become your compass. Their approval becomes your permission.
You see it in families where one child becomes the emotional shock absorber. You see it in friendships that punish independence. You see it in workplaces that mistake compliance for loyalty.
The cost is an adult who follows the current instead of directing their own trajectory.
I know that version of myself. I lived it for years.
What Agency Looks Like
In families
A parent texts you, “Why didn’t you call last night?”
Old you apologizes, over explains, and carries their disappointment.
High-agency you replies with tact and clarity: “Yesterday was full. I will call this weekend.”
With friends
You find out your group went out without you.
Old you spirals and withdraws.
High-agency you reaches out directly: “I heard you all went out. I would love to join next time.”
At work
A coworker drops a task on you because you are the reliable one.
Old you takes it on and stews in silence.
High-agency you says, “I cannot take that on. Here is what I can do.”
In relationships
Someone you care about is in a bad mood.
Old you makes it your job to fix it.
High0agency you offers presence without absorbing their emotional state. “I am here if you want to talk.”
These moments stack up and slowly reshape the person you become.
Three Ways to Build Agency
1. Separate thinking from feeling
Bowen believed individuation starts with the ability to tell the difference between what you think and what you feel. Most people fuse the two, and once they are fused, agency disappears. Emotions end up making decisions that your mind never fully agreed to.
When you feel activated, pause. Name the feeling. Then ask, “What do I actually think about this, separate from the emotion I am having?”
That tiny gap is the beginning of agency. It allows your mind to guide your choices while your emotions inform rather than control you. Once you can hold that separation, you stop being pulled by the emotional current of the system around you and start acting from your own center.
2. Regulate your emotions
Once you can separate thinking from feeling, the next step is learning to hold your own emotional state. The people we love can help us regulate, and that support can strengthen connection, but it cannot be the place we rely on. Agency grows when you become responsible for your internal experience rather than outsourcing it to partners, friends, or family.
Use practices like breath work, journaling, cold exposure, or structured solitude to settle your system before you act. When you can regulate yourself, you show up to relationships from stability instead of need, and the entire dynamic shifts.
3. Build relationships with individuals, not systems
Many adults never individuate because they still relate to their family as a single emotional unit. They do not see two parents. They see “my parents,” fused together. When every call or conversation includes both of them, you end up interacting with the system instead of the person.
Most people also have no idea how many triangles they are part of. A triangle forms when two people pull in a third to stabilize tension. Families use them constantly. So do friend groups and workplaces. Triangles feel normal, but they pull you into fixed roles and make true agency difficult because you start responding to the needs of the unit rather than acting from your own center.
The fix is simple. Break the triangle by shifting how you relate.
Call your mother individually.
Spend time with your father one on one.
Get to know each person as separate, with their own emotional world.
Once you stop treating the family as a single organism, the fusion weakens. Relating to individuals rather than systems creates space for you to stand on your own and think for yourself.
The Case for Selfishness
Think of the most high agency person you know. Everyone has someone in their life who makes decisions with clarity and lives with intention, and most of us would like to move closer to that way of being.
High agency does not mean being harsh. It means being selfish in a responsible way. Matthew McConaughey calls himself an egotistical utilitarian because he believes taking care of his own needs first makes him more effective for everyone else. In his view, tending to yourself increases your usefulness rather than isolating you.
When you lead yourself well, you stop being a burden. You stop outsourcing emotional labor. You stop living by committee. You show up steadier, clearer, and more grounded, and every system you belong to benefits from that version of you.
If this resonated, share it with someone who could use it. It helps more than you think.
