Agency Where It Wasn’t Expected
On dignity, choice, and the quiet power of standing one’s ground
Author’s Note
This essay is excerpted from Elegant Transitions, a forthcoming book that explores how individuals navigate periods of significant change without surrendering coherence, dignity, or agency. What is offered here reflects one facet of that enquiry: the quiet ways agency asserts itself when conditions shift and expectations dissolve.
The fuller work situates this reflection among other passages of transition—personal, philosophical, and practical—each examining how inner orientation shapes outward movement across thresholds.
—Baruti KMT-Sisouvong, PhD
Not of Me, But Them
Change has a way of revealing what we carry beneath our explanations.
In moments of disruption—especially those marked by imbalance of authority or uncertainty of outcome—we discover whether agency is something we perform when conditions are favourable, or something we inhabit at a fundamental level, irrespective of circumstance.
There is a widespread assumption that agency diminishes in moments of loss—that when one is acted upon, whether by systems, timelines, or procedural authority, dignity becomes conditional, provisional, or symbolic at best. Yet this assumption rests on a fragile premise: that agency is granted externally rather than exercised internally.
My own experience suggests otherwise.
Recently, I found myself navigating a transition that, from the outside, might easily have been interpreted as disempowering. Roles were defined. Procedures were in motion. Language was being used to name the situation in reductive terms. Expectations—spoken and unspoken—were clear: compliance, haste, and diminishment were to be the order of the day.
And yet, none of that translated internally.
I did not feel “less than.”
I did not feel erased.
I did not feel compelled to surrender my bearings.
What arose instead—without effort or deliberation—was agency.
Not defiance.
Not performance.
Simply the quiet exercise of choice, discernment, and above all dignity.
This surprised some observers and seems to have greatly annoyed one in particular. My spontaneous actions in the direction of agency and dignity, disrupted a script that assumes those in transition must necessarily be passive, ashamed, or overwhelmed. When care, coordination, and calm assertion appeared where submission was expected, it unsettled those accustomed to unilateral control.
More than once, the situation was described as “not proceeding normally.”
That observation was accurate—but not for the reasons implied.
What was unusual was not resistance to process.
It was the presence of agency within it.
Agency, in this sense, did not announce itself. It did not argue for legitimacy. It did not seek validation. It simply operated—selecting, consenting, coordinating, and refusing diminishment as a default rather than an act of courage.
This is an important distinction.
True agency is not reactive.
It is not summoned in crisis.
It is not dependent on confidence or bravado.
It is the natural expression of an inner orientation that has been cultivated long before it is needed.
In retrospect, I can see that what appeared effortless in the moment was anything but accidental. It was the result of years, decades even, of attending to the inner landscape—through reflection, contemplative practice, and the steady work of aligning thought, action, and value. When circumstances shifted, that alignment did not dissolve. It simply continued.
This is why agency can feel threatening to those whose sense of power depends on hierarchy rather than coherence. Particularly so for those for whom their profession affords them a modicum of power within that narrowly defined context that remains perpetually absent everywhere else within their constellation of living.
When agency appears unexpectedly, it exposes a truth many systems quietly rely on: that authority functions most smoothly when those subject to it internalise diminishment. When that diminishment does not occur, the authority itself begins to feel less stable.
This often leads to repetition of language, tightening of tone, or attempts to reassert narrative control. None of this is personal. It is structural.
But recognising that does not require acquiescence.
The deeper insight, for me, was this: agency does not require permission, and dignity does not need to be defended when it is already embodied.
In times of transition, we often ask how to regain control. I believe a better question may be how to retain orientation. Control is situational and temporary. Orientation is portable.
When orientation is intact, agency follows naturally.
This reframes transition itself.
Rather than viewing change as a period in which one waits to be restored to power, we might recognise it as a field in which power is clarified. Not the power to dominate outcomes or our fellow humans, but the power to remain oneself when outcomes are uncertain. Here, I am reminded of a quote from Benjamin Elijah Mays, Past President of Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he wrote:
The circumference of life cannot be rightly drawn until the centre is set.
When sitting in contemplation with Mays’ quote, we note he did not say the “circumference of life” could not be drawn. He specifically stated it cannot be rightly drawn. And this is key. To rightly draw ones circumference of life, one must be centred to do so effectively and, it would seem, for the long term.
This is not a call to heroics. It is an invitation to preparation.
Agency in moments of change is rarely built in the moment. It is the yield of countless small decisions made when no one is watching: how we relate to our thoughts, how we respond to frustration, how we practice presence in ordinary time. For me, that preparatory practice has consisted of a regular program of turning inward for extended periods of time via Transcendental Meditation® for close to eighteen years now. Additionally, it rests on a personal philosophy inculcated by my parents from youth:
Do the right thing even when no one is watching.
In relation to my experience, and I suspect this is so universally, when such preparation has occurred over time, agency emerges quietly—even in circumstances designed to suppress it.
And when it does, it changes the moral geometry of the space.
Not by force.
Not by protest.
But by standing where one is, fully, and without apology.
As this book nears its conclusion, this insight feels essential.
Elegant transitions are not defined by seamless movement or favourable conditions. They are defined by the capacity to carry one’s centre through change intact—to allow agency to appear where it is not expected, and to trust that dignity, once embodied, does not need to be reclaimed.
It simply needs to be exercised.
And always remember:
Agency does not disappear in moments of change. It reveals where it has been quietly waiting all along.
Suggested Practice
Exercising Agency in the Midst of Change
For periods of transition, constraint, or uncertainty
Time: 8–10 minutes
Posture: Seated comfortably or standing with both feet grounded
Begin by allowing the body to settle.
There is nothing you need to prove in this moment.
Nothing you need to defend.
Take two or three natural breaths, allowing attention to arrive fully where you are.
Now bring to mind a situation in your life where conditions are changing—
where timelines, structures, or authorities feel external to you.
Do not analyse the situation.
Simply acknowledge it is present.
Silently ask:
“Where is my agency still intact?”
Notice what arises—not as thought alone, but as sensation, posture, or impulse.
Pause.
Now ask:
“What am I still free to choose here?”
This may be something small:
how you speak,
how you listen,
how you carry yourself,
what you consent to internally.
Let the answer come without force.
Finally, ask:
“How would dignity express itself in this moment—without explanation or display?”
Rest with that question for a few breaths.
When you are ready, return attention to the room, carrying the understanding that agency does not require ideal conditions—only orientation.
—
About the Author
Dr. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong is a consciousness scholar, executive coach, and Certified Teacher of Transcendental Meditation® based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work—spanning The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress and The Seven Layers of Manifestation—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social-systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society.
He is the Founder and Director of Radical Scholar Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to consciousness-based research and public scholarship, and President of Serat Group Inc., the parent company of Transcendental Brain, a consulting and educational platform bringing consciousness science into leadership and institutional development. He also serves as Host of the On Transcendence Podcast.
Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program and serves as Host and Founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), a quarterly global gathering dedicated to the unifying power of silence.
He writes from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul.
To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.
A subtle shift where what seemed inert reveals responsiveness.