Thursday musings on the difference between information and understanding, and why your soul doesn’t speak algorithm.
I know someone who googled “why does my relationship keep repeating the same pattern” this week. Then she asked ChatGPT to analyze her situation. Then she tried a therapy chatbot app. Then back to googling “signs you’re trauma bonded.”
Thirty-seven tabs and three AI conversations later, she was more confused than when she started.
Of course she was. Because what Google can’t tell you, and what AI can’t compute, is why THIS pattern showed up in YOUR life at THIS moment. What your particular nervous system is trying to protect. How this connects to the dream you had last week or the way your father never really saw you.
The internet may be able to give you information. But YOU need understanding.
The Google + AI trap
I believe a lot of us have become brilliant at accumulating data about our problems. We can ask Google, Siri, and our favourite chatbot. We know about narcissistic traits and love languages and red flags.
But knowing WHAT is happening isn’t the same as understanding WHY it’s happening to YOU, specifically, right now.
Let me tell you about a client who hadn’t reached out in years, who recently emailed asking if we could do a month of my unlimited support. But first, he needed to make sure of something. “I want Jonni, not a chatbot.” He uses AI for his own work, knows how brilliant it can be, but also knows it’s no substitute for this kind of soul work. As he put it, “I want real and deep, not algorithms.”
I had another client who’d fed her entire relationship history into a chatbot and asked it to spot the patterns. The AI gave her a perfectly logical analysis. But it couldn’t answer the deeper question: “Why do I keep choosing this? What part of me needs this dynamic to feel safe?”
That’s soul work. And souls don’t speak algorithm.
When someone actually sees the pattern
There’s something that happens when another human who understands how psyche and soul interweave looks at your specific situation and says, “Ah, here’s what’s actually happening.”
Not the generic “signs you’re in a toxic relationship.” But, “This situation is asking you to reclaim the power you gave away when you were seven and learned that being needed was safer than being seen. And here’s where to start…”
That lands differently, doesn’t it?
The relief of being understood
Last week, I was walking with my ducks at dawn again (they’re obsessed with the new puddles from last weekend’s rain) when a client texted me at 6:41 AM. “I figured it out. This isn’t about him at all. This is about that thing we talked about, how I learned to disappear when things got intense.”
I texted her back immediately.
That’s the moment. That’s when the deeper pattern finally makes sense. When you stop googling “how to fix this” and start understanding “why this is here.”
Your soul has been trying to get your attention. It doesn’t need more information. It needs someone who can help you translate what it’s been trying to tell you.
And I believe that the answer isn’t in the search results. It’s in being truly seen.
So….If you’ve been googling the same relationship/health/life questions over and over, getting more confused instead of clearer… that’s likely your soul saying it’s time for a different kind of conversation. I work with a handful of people through my Unlimited support, where you can text or email me whenever life gets confusing and needs soul-level decoding. You can have me for a week when you’re in crisis mode, or three months as you go through a major transition. Let me know if you want to know more about what that looks like.
