The story of the princess and the pea, where bodily pain is seen as a confirmation of specialness, is not just a bedtime fairy tale but a beautiful allegory of the modern illusion of importance generated by the left hemisphere of the brain when it loses touch with the reality of the body. The princess in this story feels something no one else feels. The pea, which, despite twenty mattresses, causes her a sleepless night, becomes a symbol for that inner part of a person who cannot endure true contact but still wishes to be granted special value because of their sensitivity.
In reality, it is bodily irritability due to excessive tension, sensory overload, and internal disorientation resulting from a lack of reliable structure in early childhood. The princess does not dare admit that her pain stems from immaturity, so she transforms it into proof of chosen status. She creates a world within herself where she is more than others because she suffers differently, perceives more, and thus believes she deserves more attention. Her pain becomes the main proof of her importance and, simultaneously, the main reason she refuses to change.
When fundamental relationships in the family fail to develop into a safe, respectful, and stable structure, the child cannot form a healthy self-image. Instead of security and love, they develop a sense of specialness nourished by pain. The role of the victim is replaced by the role of an exceptional being who feels and sees more than others and therefore believes they are entitled to more. Yet such specialness is not a gift. It is compensation. It is a distorted self-image born out of pain, not a real sense of worth.
When this internal structure matures, it no longer seeks only validation. It seeks influence. It needs it because it believes that only with influence will its pain have meaning. That suffering meant something. That it made them into something more. And here the illusion begins to spread. It becomes a system. A pattern that deepens like a groove in the brain cortex; every new situation where the person is not heard strengthens the conviction that they are not heard because they are special—not because they are wrong, but because others are too underdeveloped to understand them.
And if only they had more influence, the world would be better. The more influence eludes them, the more it hurts. And the more it hurts, the more they believe they are right.
Yet because they do not receive real influence—because they lack the understanding, knowledge, or maturity for true leadership—they begin to create an illusion of influence. Opportunities for this abound in today’s world. They can write, speak, mentor, comment. But they do so to maintain their role. Not for the truth, but for power. Not from insight, but from the need for control. They do not seek dialogue but recognition. If they do not receive it, they change the narrative. They mislead. They obscure. They employ strategies developed by those who cannot feel but must feel important.
Their power stems from the ability to manipulate the emotional hunger of others. They find those who have also lost touch with their bodies, whose right hemisphere no longer enables healthy judgment. Those who do not feel that something is wrong but merely listen to words that sound right. Thus, they create a court. Followers. Subjects. Not to serve them, but so they serve her role. Their weakness, confusion, doubts, and searching become fertile ground for strengthening her authority. They are her confirmation. Without them, she would have to admit her impotence. With them, she remains a queen.
But this role has a price. Because it is based on a lie, it demands constant feeding. It requires new conflicts, new explanations, new proofs of being right. And if the world does not offer them, she creates them. Conflict does not stress her—it sustains her. Because conflict means importance. In conflict, she can again showcase her pain. Because if she suffers, she is right. And if the world wounds her, then it is clear—the world is bad, and she is better.
Her self-image turns inward but projects outward. She no longer sees who she is. She only sees how she appears. And she must maintain that image at all costs.
Just like the frog in the fable who wanted to become a horse and shod its legs to look grander. But when it returned to the water where it once swam easily, the horseshoes dragged it down. It could no longer even do what it once knew. Luckily, the other frogs did not follow. Likewise, a person who takes on a role that does not belong to them and tries to hold onto it with external symbols of power is lost in the weight of their own illusion. The image they create disables basic movement—contact with themselves, ease, honesty, and vulnerability. And once they start to sink, no one can help them anymore. Because no one sees the frog anymore. Everyone sees a horse that cannot swim.
That is why, in a family where relationships are based on safety, honesty, and responsibility, it is even more important to recognize how someone reacts when they gain a sense of power and influence. When they get the opportunity to decide, to guide, to influence others—that is when their true face is revealed. And if we recognize this in time, gently but clearly, we can save ourselves from many problems later, when such a person would already occupy an important role as a partner, as a parent, as a bearer of relationship dynamics.
Because power and influence do not reveal a person—they strip them bare. If, in that moment, the person becomes insensitive, arrogant, overly confident, manipulative, or emotionally vindictive, they are not led by contact with truth but by an inner need to compensate for unresolved childhood pain.
We are all vulnerable under the skin. Each of us has our own inner story. And precisely because of that, it is essential to understand the differences between the functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
The left hemisphere is the tool of logic, explanation, and control. But without a developed and leading right hemisphere, it becomes a dangerous tool. The right hemisphere enables feeling, connection, and awareness. It is the only part that can sense when something is not right, even when it looks orderly. It sees beneath the surface, senses relational dynamics, hears the silence between words.
If we want to develop anything meaningful—relationships, partnerships, parenthood, a safe family environment—then the right hemisphere must lead. Only with its clarity can the left hemisphere act in balance and support. Without it, every structure we create will eventually become a battleground for power and ego validation.
Important projects also attract those who desperately seek to influence others simply because they have no influence over themselves. And if we cannot feel this, we will end up helping build something that will eventually begin to rot from the inside.
That is why it is necessary to increase honesty and attention by reducing SMA and raising emotional maturity and effectiveness. It is essential to observe how someone reacts when they are no longer in a victim role but gain the opportunity to lead. When they have decision-making power. When others listen to them. When we trust them.
If, at that moment, they do not stay in touch with their body, with compassion, with respect, but instead slide into controlling, dramatizing, or demanding loyalty, then they are not yet ready. And the earlier we notice this, the more love we save later. And the more truth we preserve within our family.
That is why learning the AEQ Approach is one of the strongest ways to become more capable of perceiving, understanding, and responding appropriately to these subtle but extremely influential internal dynamics. AEQ teaches us how, through our own body, we learn to feel what the mind has long suppressed and rationalized.
When, through reducing chronic muscle tension and increasing bodily awareness, we strengthen the influence of the right hemisphere, unconscious patterns that shaped our perception of ourselves and others gradually begin to reveal themselves. And once this happens within ourselves, we can much more quickly, clearly, and without emotional fog recognize it in others.
Learning the AEQ Approach does not only mean learning to move better, breathe better, or manage pain. It primarily means learning to discern truth from role, connection from control, vulnerability from manipulation. We learn to recognize the person who wants to lead from ego before giving them the opportunity to mask their inner emptiness with influence. We learn to ask questions, offer a mirror, and interrupt dynamics that would otherwise cause the collapse of a relationship, a group, or a family.
With the AEQ Approach, we become more present, less reactive, more patient, and more precise. Not because we must be “better,” but because we are more aware. And that awareness is the only thing that protects us in the long term from letting those who cannot lead themselves take leadership over us.
Through the AEQ Approach, we not only become healthier—we also become more responsible. And that is what families, partnerships, communities, and the world need most.
Aleš Ernst, author of the AEQ Approach.
