The Modern Empire in Your Living Room

The Modern Empire in Your Living Room: 
When "Friendship" Is a Colonial Charter

~How I learned to spot the extraction disguised as connection—and how you can too.

By Sunny Wang

It started with a vision. Not a grand one, but the kind we’ve all had: the hope for a new friend. She was a fellow writer, a spiritual seeker, someone building a new life an ocean away. She spoke the language of the heart. We shared stories of survival. I offered help—a ride, some sightseeing, links to houses for sale. It felt like the beginning of something beautiful and mutual.

The following year, she returned. I offered rides, and we spent time together. This year, she bought a car, but her house hunt stalled. She asked me for storage space and an introduction to a friend with a parking spot before she left the country again. A few weeks after she was gone, I realized I had become a character in a play I never auditioned for. My time was now part of her “shared schedule.” My opinions were targets for her moral policing. My “no” was treated as insubordination, something to be routed around. My home had become a “dispatch center.” She even recruited two others to pressure me, with phone calls and texts, one after another. Exhausted and angry, I could no longer ignore the feeling that my kindness had been exploited. When she started a four-way group text, I’d had enough. I wrote a note to all three, named the behaviors, and refused further communication regarding her logistics until a week before her return. The response? A phone call at 1:40 in the morning. That final disrespect for my time was the last straw. I blocked her.

It took shamanic visions and weeks of inner work to finally see what was happening. This wasn't just a bad friendship. It was a colonial annexation.

And with that label, a lifetime of fog began to lift. This wasn’t the first time I’d encountered this colonization—it was the first time I could recognize the pattern with pristine clarity. I had seen its blueprint countless times before: in the dynamics between my sisters, in other draining friendships, within the hushed halls of religious and spiritual organizations, even in my most intimate past relationships. Time and again, I found myself a conscript in many such empires, large and small. 

In a strange way, I found myself needing to thank the universe for this profoundly precise, if painful, demonstration. It gave me the clarity I had always needed but never had the map to see. Perhaps, in seeing it so clearly, I was being given a small mission: to draw that map for others.

I had stumbled into a modern empire, one that doesn’t conquer land, but colonizes human goodwill. Its currency is the obligation of friendship; its language is spirituality and love. Its charter is written in the silent assumption that your resources are its logistics. 

If you’ve ever felt used, drained, or like a “gopher” in someone else’s story, you might know this empire, too

The Imperial Playbook: A Crash Course

The old empires had flags and armies to overtake territories and resources. This one has a much better disguise. The following is a list of the unspoken rules of the colonial charter:

1 Your kindness is a territory. Your time, space, emotional and/or physical labor are seen as extensions of the colonizer’s network, there for the claiming.

2. Requests are directives. The phrasing implies obligation. The expectation is compliance. Consent does not exist. Your purpose is to execute their agenda. 

3. “No” is not a boundary; it is not allowed. It is seen as insubordination. It will be ignored, argued with, or circumvented by group consensus or moral policing.

4. People are conscripted. Why pay for services when you can conscript people? You are a cost-saving measure with a heartbeat, providing free labor, storage, management, under the emotional cover of friendship, partner, or group/team members.

5. They speak from a throne. To solidify their authority, they position themselves as the more knowledgeable, spiritually evolved, or morally superior. Your understanding of a situation, your feelings, or your opinions are routinely invalidated and dismissed. They sometimes will explicitly tell you how you should think or feel. This isn't guidance—it's the enforcement of a hierarchy where their reality overrules yours.

6. Meticulous impression management. The most effective colonizers are masterfully gentle, sweet, and supportive. They build a believable, even admirable, persona. This impeccable facade is the architecture of deception, designed to make the empire’s extraction feel like an honor.

The Language (The Sheep’s Clothing):

1. It speaks in spiritual buzzwords and therapeutic terms. “Community,” “heart-centered,” “mutual support.” 

2. Past traumas are masterfully utilized as victim-bonding—mirroring your vulnerabilities to create a false, accelerated intimacy that comes with unspoken contract. 

3. Its most potent weapon: assigning “moral failure” to anyone who doesn’t comply with its demands.

The Cast of Characters:

In my story, I met them all. Recognizing these roles can help you spot the empire's structure in your own life.

1. The Colonizer: The sovereign. The vision-holder who treats connection as a means to an end. For them, “building community” or “deep friendship” is really about securing a managed, sustainable human resource pool.
   
   
2. The Colonial Administrator: This is the friend or associate recruited, often unknowingly, to enforce the charter. They believe in the colonizer’s “mission” and see your boundaries as a disruption to the supply chain. Sometimes, these administrators are what’s known as ‘flying monkeys’ in narcissistic dynamics—agents recruited to do the bidding of the central figure, sustaining the empire’s pressure.
   
   
3. The Complicit Enabler: These are the bystanders who watch the drama unfold. They may quietly nod along to the colonizer's narrative of moral failure or shared sacrifice, shaking their heads at the "difficult" rebel. Their silence, their non-action, and their unspoken judgment allow the colonization to take place. They grant it legitimacy through their passivity. 
   
   
4. The Conscripted Pawn: That was me. My goodwill was the fertile soil. My capacity was the raw material. My awakening—the moment I said "this ends now"—was the rebellion that shut down the operation.

This is where the isolation becomes most acute. As the pawn, you aren't just fighting a single opponent. You are pushing against a perceived wall of social consensus—the weight of the colonizer’s “logic”, the administrator’s pressure, and the enabler's silent judgment. The deepest constraint isn't in the direct demands; it's in the disorienting, gaslit feeling that you are the one being unreasonable for wanting your sovereignty back. The system is designed to make your rebellion feel like a personal failure.

The Awakening: Sobering Up in a Drunk World

That moment of clarity is profoundly lonely. It’s like sobering up in a room where everyone else is still drunk. You start to see the imperial logic everywhere—in family dynamics, old friendships, workplace culture, the hushed halls of religious and spiritual organizations… the pattern spreads, and for a while, it feels like there is no end to the recognition.

This is the nightmare and the gift: you can't unsee it. You see that true consent is alien to the empire. In a sane world, a “no” is a complete sentence. But the empire only hears it as the opening of a negotiation, an invitation to overpower your resistance. You realize that in this system, relationships are hierarchies, not partnerships. Love and friendship are not bonds, but a red carpet rolled out toward your resources and your compliance.

This realization manifests as a gut-deep unease. You feel the conditional acceptance: you are loved for your utility, for your compliance, for playing your assigned role. The moment your needs conflict with the empire's logistics, you face a withdrawal of warmth, a wave of guilt, or the cold silence of the Complicit Enabler. Your belonging is contingent on your usefulness.

So, the most telling question isn't just intellectual; it's a felt sense: If you withdrew your utility—your time, your labor, your endless understanding—would the connection wither? If the answer is a hollow feeling in your gut, you have your answer. You’re not in a friendship. You’re upholding a treaty.

Choosing to see this is the first, hardest step toward a different reality. It is not an easy path. It is the only path to freedom. It means you may have to build a new circle of friends. It guarantees you will encounter more colonizers, administrators, and enablers—but next time, you will be armed with clarity and the quiet power of your own discernment. You will be moving toward a sane world, even if you have to walk there alone for a while.

How to Declare Your Sovereignty (And Build a Real Community)

Leaving the empire is one of the most difficult decisions you will ever make. It is not a single act, but a series of hard, conscious choices.

I realized that by staying, I was trading my authenticity and sovereignty for conditional acceptance and counterfeit belonging. I was allowing myself to be used. My silence, my muted “no,” was an act of self-betrayal.

I’ve walked away from family ties, intimate relationships, friendships, churches, and spiritual communities. The hurt was deep and real, long before I had the language of “empire” to explain it. For years, I wondered if I was the problem—if walking away was a failure of my heart. Now, understanding the pattern, I have no more doubts.

I wish I could tell you there is no grief. I can’t. I still grieve the time I spent building on sand and the wishful could-have-been of those connections. But I can tell you this: it gets easier. The time you spend on the wrong people, and recovering your energy becomes significantly shorter. The people you attract start to look different. Your "no" gets easier, and your "yes" has brains.

So, let's talk about what comes next. This is how we build the dam, brick by brick.

1. Learn the Imperial Language. 

Your first and most powerful act of defense is recognition. Study the playbook until its tactics are as obvious as a flag. When you hear spiritual talk paired with transactional pressure, see the sheep’s clothing for what it is. When a “no” is met with persuasion, punishment, or prosecution, understand this is not a conversation—it is the charter being enforced. When someone assumes authority over your thoughts or feelings without your consent, see it plainly: this is an act of overthrowing your inner government.

2. Stop Engaging on Imperial Terms. 

Do not Justify, Argue, Defend, or Explain (JADE). You cannot win a debate whose core premise is that you are a subordinate, and whose prime directive is to make you wrong at any cost. State your boundary as a sovereign fact. “I will not be discussing this further.” Then, courageously walk away. It will feel like you are the one being rude. That feeling is the empire’s last-ditch gaslighting. I’ve been in that situation countless times. No matter how I tried to explain, I was always cast as the bad one, the wrong one, in their narrative. Staying in the conversation only meant being bombed into oblivion. I finally learned to just shut up and walk away. The silence that follows is not defeat; it is the sound of your sovereignty settling into place.

3. Build Your Dam and Your Filters. 

The dynamic of colonization is a polluted, roaring river. You cannot fight this current head-on; you will be pummeled into oblivion. The only way to neutralize it is to redirect it. 

Build your dam from the materials of understanding we’ve discussed. Reflect on your past colonized experiences—not to reopen old wounds, but to revisit the patterns and behaviors and awaken your somatic awareness of them. This will build a clear frame of reference for discernment when you encounter colonizing tactics again. 

Your lived experience, your discernment, and your boundaries are your filters. What passes through is no longer a toxic force that overwhelms you, but clear water you control. You will find that your own compassion, once murky with obligation, becomes clear—held safely in your reservoir, for your own sustenance first. Only then do you decide who you would share it with.

4. Feed Your Dragon. 

For me, the dragon is the protective part of my sovereignty. Its job is to set boundaries and to say NO fiercely. The dragon isn’t malice; it’s the unshakeable, unassailable nature of self-protection. It guards the fortress of my spirit and asserts that this territory is mine.

5. Build Your Fortress. 

What is the fortress of our spirit? It is a somatic sense of self—our entire being, the energetic and physical space we occupy. I know this can seem abstract; it is a deep, neurological awareness of our being. To cultivate this foundational awareness, I highly recommend a practical tool: Dr. Daniel Siegel's Wheel of Awareness meditation. If you haven't paid much attention to this part of yourself, it is a powerful place to start.

Committing to practices that increase somatic awareness is how you strengthen the fortress walls. This can include mindfulness, self-compassion, shadow work, breath work, or movement meditations like Tai Chi, yoga, or somatic dance.

I wish I could tell you this is easy, but I can’t. It has taken me years to develop a solid sense of self. This is a lifelong commitment—a determined, dedicated unlearning of the layers of distortion bestowed by society and upbringing. 

Yet, from that secure, centered self, your dragon’s ‘NO’ transforms. It becomes a clear, sovereign command rather than a reactive defense. This inner alignment is what finally allows you to move from protection to connection.

6. Seek Other Sovereign States. 

True community is not an empire. It is an alliance of sovereign states that value authenticity, equality, and altruism. It’s built on mutual recognition, explicit consent, and the dignified acceptance of “no.” These connections are rarer, but their fire is different—a steady hearth, not a consuming blaze.

A personal note: I am still on this part of the path. I have mapped the empire and declared my own sovereignty, but the alliance remains a hopeful blueprint. In many ways, writing this is my first act of reaching out—a signal to others who know this landscape, in the hope that we might recognize each other and choose to build something profound.

Conclusion: Drawing the New Map

I’m drawing a new map now. Its first landmark was that dam—the boundary that transformed polluted obligation into clear, self-owned compassion. Its constitution are the poems forged from my rage, stating that my kindness is a gift, not a tax. That my “no” is the law of the land. That my peace is the highest priority.

This map is not empty. At its center sits the fortress of a self I am learning to inhabit, guarded by a dragon whose fire is clarity, not destruction. The territory it defines is undoubtedly mine.

The journey is sobering and often lonely. You’ll see the imperial water in which so many still swim. But from the shore of your own sovereignty, you’ll also begin to spot other fires on distant mountains—the other sober ones, the other dragons guarding their fortresses.

You are not a resource. You are a sovereign state. Start governing accordingly. Tend your fire, fortify your walls, and when you are ready, send up your signal. The quality of your future alliances—the true community we are all seeking—depends on it.

*The "poems forged from my rage" mentioned in this article can be found here.

If this map has helped you navigate your own terrain, please consider sharing it with others you feel might need it. To support me in continuing to create resources like this, you can make a contribution here. Every share expands the alliance, and every bit of support helps keep the signal fire burning.