The therapy and relationship coaching industries have fallen into a dangerous trap of oversimplification. Everywhere we turn, we are bombarded with neat categories that promise to explain the complexity of human connection: "secure vs. anxious attachment," "masculine vs. feminine energy," "healthy vs. toxic behaviors," "narcissist vs. empath" and so on.
While these frameworks can offer initial insight and can be a useful reference point, they have evolved into something far more limiting, a binary lens that reduces the beautiful complexity of human relationships into digestible but ultimately damaging labels.
The Seductive Appeal of Categories
There is something deeply satisfying about being able to categorise our experiences. When we are in pain, confused, or seeking understanding, these black-and-white descriptions offer immediate relief. They provide a sense of control, a way to organise chaos, and most importantly, they tell us we are "right" while someone else is "wrong."
Unfortunately this someone is often our partner!
And thus this relief comes at a cost.
The Hidden Damage of Binary Thinking
When we view our partners through the lens of right/wrong, good/bad, healthy/toxic, we create an invisible wall between us and them.
What's really happening however, is that we are avoiding the real work.
These labels give us permission to stay stuck and dare I say it 'lazy'.
As a result, instead of taking responsibility for your own energy and how you show up, you get to point fingers and make your partner the problem. It's so much easier to label them as "avoidant" than to examine what energy you are bringing that might be creating distance.
This creates what I call "energetic separation" and the majority of relationships are suffering from this, without people even realising. At the core of this separation, which is only ever going to have a detrimental effect on your relationship, is an abdication of your power. Unknowingly you hand it over to your partner's behaviour or to the story you have running in your mind.
The result? You become a victim of their patterns instead of a master of your own energy.
The Narcissist Label Epidemic
Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the overuse of narcissism labels. The internet is flooded with content helping people identify "narcissistic" partners, often reducing complex relational dynamics to simple checklists. While genuine narcissistic abuse exists and of course must be acknowledged, the widespread casual use of these labels has created a culture where any difficult behavior gets pathologised.
When people label their partner as a narcissist, in many ways they have energetically ended the relationship in their mind. There's no room for growth, understanding, or shared responsibility because the judgement, doubt and blame are running the show.
They end up creating a story where they are the victim and their partner is the perpetrator, leaving little space for the nuanced reality of two imperfect humans trying to love each other.
The Overthinking Trap That Keeps You Stuck
These binary frameworks don't just fuel endless mental analysis, they are designed to keep you there. The relationship coaching and therapy industries profit from your confusion, your need to figure things out, your addiction to more information.
However, the real truth is: your power doesn't live in your mind. It lives in your body. In your energy. In your capacity to show up differently regardless of what your partner is doing.
While you are busy researching attachment styles and analysing text messages, you are missing the point entirely. You are not learning how to master your own energy. You are not developing the embodied presence that actually transforms relationships.
Essentially you are staying in the land of 'comfort', outsourcing your power to concepts and categories instead of doing the real work of energetic mastery.
This might feel like a bit of an 'ouch' to say the least, but this is where your opportunity to create the relationship you want really lies.
The Real Work: Energy Mastery
The secret to "success" in love? It's not about finding the right person or getting them to change. It's about mastering your own energy.
Your energy is your power. How you show up, what you radiate, the quality of presence you bring, this is what creates the relationship you experience. Not their attachment style. Not their communication patterns. Not whether they are "emotionally available" (although of course this helps).
Energy mastery requires you to get out of your head and into your body. It requires you to stop making your partner responsible for your experience and start taking full ownership of your inner state.
This is hard work. It's much easier to label them as the problem and keep consuming content that validates a victim story.
The Hard Truth?
Most people don't want to do the real work. They want quick fixes, easy answers, and someone to blame.
Binary thinking gives you all of that. It lets you stay comfortable in your patterns while making your partner the villain. It keeps you stuck in the same cycles because you never have to look at your own energy, your own patterns, your own contribution to the dynamic.
You wonder why you're not getting what you want in love? It's because you are letting your mind run the show instead of developing the energetic mastery that creates magnetic, transformative relationships.
The person who masters their energy, who can stay centered, present, and in their power regardless of what their partner is doing, that person becomes magnetic. Not because they are perfect, but because they are not giving their power away.
The Choice
You have a choice. You can keep collecting labels, analysing behaviors, and staying stuck in your head. You can keep making your partner responsible for your happiness and wondering why nothing changes.
Or you can drop the mental games and start mastering your energy. You can stop being 'lazy' with your love life and start taking full responsibility for the relationship you are creating.
The frameworks aren't the problem. Attachment to them is however. It is merely an avoidance tactic by the mind to avoid the real work of getting deeply intimate with yourself.
Your power lies beyond the so-called 'rational' mind. Unfortunately it is often quite insane when it comes to relationships.
I take my clients through a journey of reclamation. Reclaiming their true power back which fundamentally lies in their body, their energy, in their willingness to show up differently regardless of what story their mind wants to tell them about their partner.
If it is time to stop thinking your way into love and time to start embodying it, please get in touch to explore your next steps.
The relationship you want is waiting for you to claim back your power. Your energy holds the key and can change EVERYTHING.