Power does not require domination.
It does not need volume, aggression, or intent.

Power exists wherever one person’s choices shape another person’s reality.

Parents have power over children.
Managers have power over employees.
Emotionally regulated people have power over dysregulated ones.
People with stability have power over people without it.

None of this is inherently wrong.

What matters is whether the responsibility that comes with power is acknowledged — or avoided.

Power without accountability often looks benign.

It looks like:

• disengaging when things get uncomfortable
• deferring decisions and letting others adapt
• framing avoidance as neutrality
• saying “I don’t want conflict” while creating consequences
• stepping back and calling it boundaries

Nothing dramatic happens.

But the impact does not disappear.
It relocates.

Someone else holds the tension.
Someone else explains.
Someone else absorbs uncertainty.
Someone else stabilises the system.

This is how power operates quietly.

Not through control — but through absence.

When people with power opt out of discomfort, the cost does not vanish.
It lands on whoever has the least room to refuse.

That is the responsibility of power.

Not to be perfect.
Not to be endlessly available.

But to recognise when withdrawal creates harm — and to address it.

Power that avoids accountability does not become harmless.

It becomes invisible.

And invisibility is what allows damage to persist
without anyone being named as the problem.