Why You’re Drawn to the Wrong People (And It Feels Like Love)

“The heart that’s been through the most can sometimes mistake chaos for connection.” ~Unknown

I remember the exact moment I knew something was wrong.

We had been talking for three weeks. Every conversation left me either floating or deflated, never just… okay. Either he said something that made me feel like the most understood person on earth or he went quiet for two days, and I spent those two days mentally replaying everything I’d said, looking for what I’d done wrong.

And yet, when he came back, I felt relief. That rush of “he’s back, everything is fine” was so intense it almost felt like joy.

I told my friend, “I’ve never felt this kind of chemistry with anyone.”

She looked at me carefully and said, “Are you sure that’s chemistry?”

I didn’t understand what she meant then. I do now.

The Feeling We Mistake for Love

Here’s something nobody tells you about toxic attraction: it doesn’t feel toxic. It feels electric.

That constant checking of your phone. The high when they text. The anxiety when they don’t. The way your whole nervous system seems to revolve around one person.

We call it chemistry. We call it passion. We say things like “I’ve never felt this way before,” and we mean it completely.

But here’s the truth that changed everything for me: intensity is not the same as intimacy. And chemistry is not always a sign that someone is good for you. Sometimes it’s a sign that something familiar is being triggered in you.

Something old. Something unhealed.

Why Chaos Can Feel Like Home

For a long time, I thought I was just unlucky in love. I kept meeting emotionally unavailable men, men who ran hot and cold, men who made me feel wonderful and invisible in the same week.

I thought the problem was them.

Then one day, sitting with a journal I’d started keeping, I wrote down a question I’d been avoiding: What do all these relationships have in common?

The answer made me sit back in my chair.

Me.

Not because I was broken or bad at love. But because somewhere along the way, I had learned that love looked like this. That love came with uncertainty. That love required me to prove myself, to wait, to earn the warmth.

When you grow up around emotional inconsistency—a parent who is loving one day and cold the next, a home where affection is unpredictable—your nervous system learns to read that pattern as normal. As familiar. As safe, even when it isn’t.

So when you meet someone calm, steady, and straightforwardly kind, something in you whispers, “This is boring. There’s no spark.”

And when you meet someone who makes your heart race with uncertainty? Your body says. “This is it. This is love.”

It isn’t love. It’s recognition. Your nervous system found something that rhymes with your earliest experiences and lit up like coming home.

The Signs I Explained Away

When I look back now, the signs were there from the beginning.

The first time he canceled last minute, I told myself he was busy.

The first time he said something cutting and then laughed it off, I told myself I was too sensitive.

The first time he disappeared for three days without explanation and came back like nothing happened, I was just so relieved he came back that I never questioned the disappearing.

I had a hundred explanations. A thousand small justifications. My friends would raise an eyebrow, and I would defend him before they even finished their sentence.

Because here’s the thing about confusing chemistry: it doesn’t just make you feel things. It makes you think in a particular way. It makes you hypervigilant, always trying to decode, always trying to predict, always trying to be the perfect version of yourself so the warmth will stay.

You become so focused on them that you stop paying attention to you.

To the knot in your stomach that showed up on the third date.

To the voice in the back of your head saying something is off.

To the version of yourself that was slowly, quietly going quiet.

One evening he said something dismissive about something I cared deeply about. It was small, the kind of thing that’s hard to explain to someone else. But I felt it land in my chest.

And I watched myself smile and change the subject.

Later, driving home, I thought about that moment. The way I had swallowed what I felt so naturally, so automatically. The way I hadn’t even hesitated.

When did this become something I just do?

That question cracked something open in me.

I realized I had been so busy chasing the highs of this connection that I hadn’t noticed what it was costing me. My voice. My instincts. My trust in myself.

The chemistry wasn’t bringing out the best in me. It was slowly teaching me to disappear.

What Healthy Feels Like (And Why It Scared Me)

After that relationship ended—and it took longer to end than I’d like to admit—I met someone who was just… kind. Consistently. Calmly. Without games.

My first reaction was suspicion.

Why is he so steady? What’s he hiding? Where’s the tension, the electricity, the push and pull?

I almost walked away from something genuinely good because it didn’t match the pattern my nervous system had learned to chase.

That’s when I understood it fully: I wasn’t looking for love. I was looking for the feeling of love as I had always known it. And what I had always known was anxious, uncertain, and conditional.

Healthy love doesn’t feel like a drug. It feels like being able to breathe.

It took me a while to stop waiting for the drama. To let steady feel exciting. To trust that the absence of chaos wasn’t a red flag; it was the whole point.

What This Means for You

If you’ve ever said, “I just don’t feel that spark with the nice ones,” I want you to hear this gently but clearly: that spark you’re chasing might not be a sign of love. It might be a sign of a wound that’s still running the show.

That doesn’t make you broken. It makes you human. It makes you someone whose heart learned to survive in a certain kind of environment and now needs to gently learn something new.

Here’s where to start:

Notice the pattern.

The next time you feel that addictive pull toward someone, pause. Ask yourself: is this excitement, or is this anxiety with a good story on top?

Get curious about your history.

The relationships that shaped your earliest ideas about love, were they safe? Were they consistent? What did you learn love felt like?

Stop trusting intensity as a measure of compatibility.

The most important relationships in your life should feel safe, not just exciting.

Learn what your nervous system is actually telling you.

Sometimes that “boring” feeling is your body relaxing. And your body relaxing is a very, very good sign.

And if you recognize yourself in this story—in the chasing, the explaining away, the chemistry that felt so real but left you so drained—know that the pattern can be broken.

It doesn’t require you to give up on passion or depth or real, alive connection.

It just requires you to understand why you’ve been drawn to what you’ve been drawn to.

Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you can’t unsee it, you finally get to choose differently.

That shift—from chasing chemistry to understanding it—is exactly where healing begins. And it starts with one honest question: what if the love I’ve been searching for was never supposed to feel this hard?

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About Melany Essentials

Melany Essentials shares insights from her own journey through toxic relationships and the lessons she learned about self-worth, patterns, and love. Through her experience, she created a FREE guide, to help readers uncover hidden emotional patterns, reflect deeply, and take their first steps toward healthier, more fulfilling love. You can download it here: Why You Keep Attracting TOXIC Partners and How to STOP. For questions or feedback, you can reach her at: melany@melanyessentials.com

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Why I Stopped Expecting People to Love Me Like I Love Them

“Expectation is the root of all heartache.” ~William Shakespeare

I turned forty this year. And I am only now figuring out something I wish someone had told me at twenty.

Most of my pain—the kind that sat in my chest for days, the kind that made me replay conversations at 2 a.m., the kind that made me wonder what was wrong with me—was not really coming from other people.

It was coming from what I expected them to do.

I know. That is not an easy thing to hear. It wasn’t easy for me either.

My Mother Never Knew She Taught Me This

Growing up, I watched my mother get hurt a lot. Someone would say something careless, and she would go quiet for days. A small betrayal would leave her devastated for weeks.

As a child, I used to sit with that and think, “Why are WE the ones suffering? Those people clearly don’t care. So why does it hurt us so much?”

I thought I had figured it out. I told myself I would be different. I would not let people affect me the way they affected her.

But here is the thing about the emotional patterns we grow up around—we don’t choose them. They just quietly become part of how we see the world. And by the time I was an adult, I had inherited exactly what I was trying to avoid.

I expected too much from people. And when they couldn’t give it, I hurt the same way she did.

I just didn’t see it for a very long time.

The Silent Contract I Wrote All by Myself

In college, I was the genuine one. No drama, no fake smiling, no saying one thing and meaning another. I showed up for people.

I listened. I helped. I actually cared, and I didn’t hide it.

And somewhere deep down, I believed that all of this would come back to me. Not because anyone promised it would. Just because it seemed fair, right?

I watched other girls, the charming ones, the ones who knew exactly what to say and how to laugh at the right moment, build big social circles without much effort. And I sat there being real and honest and completely genuine, and I had maybe two people who actually called me.

It stung more than I ever admitted.

Looking back, I can see what was happening. I had this invisible contract in my head:

If I am kind, people should include me.

If I am real with them, they should value me.

If I care, they should care back.

Nobody had agreed to this. I wrote it alone. But when people didn’t follow it, I felt genuinely betrayed—like they had broken a promise they never actually made.

Marriage Didn’t Fix It—It Just Made It Clearer

I went into marriage thinking, “Okay, I am older now, more mature, I understand people better. Surely this is where sincerity actually pays off.”

I did everything I thought a good partner was supposed to do. I gave without keeping score. I didn’t make demands. I was loyal, I was present, I was patient.

But I started noticing something that I really didn’t want to see. Some people are very good at looking like they love you. They say the right words, they act the part—but underneath, they are mostly thinking about themselves.

And because I always assumed that people were as sincere as I was, I was usually the last to figure this out.

Every time it happened, the same old question would come up: Why do I always give more than I get? Why does caring this much leave me feeling so alone?

For a long time, my answer was people are just selfish.

But that was the easy answer. The real one took much longer to find.

The Thing I Really Didn’t Want to Admit

Okay. This is the hard part.

People were not actually failing me. People were just being who they were.

I was the one who kept expecting them to be someone else.

I expected emotional honesty from people who had never learned how to be emotionally honest. I expected loyalty from people who just didn’t think about relationships the way I did. I expected depth from people who were honestly fine living on the surface—and that was just who they were.

And when they couldn’t give me what I expected, I turned it into a wound. Then I blamed them for the wound.

I wasn’t just reacting to what was actually happening. I was reacting to the story I had written in my head about how things should go. And when real life didn’t match that story, it felt like a loss—even though no one had promised me anything.

That was the moment things started to shift for me.

The Real Reason Why People Disappoint Us

Most people who disappoint us are not sitting around thinking about how to let us down. They are just living their lives, operating from whatever emotional capacity they have, shaped by their own history and wounds.

Some people love loudly. Some show love by just showing up quietly and never saying much. Some people will give you their last rupee but cannot sit with your feelings for five minutes.

Some people are warm with everyone but close to no one.

None of that makes them bad. It just makes them different from you.

The problem starts when we decide that our way of loving is the standard. That if someone doesn’t match it, they are doing something wrong. That is where the suffering lives—in that gap between how we think people should behave and who they actually are.

People are not mirrors. They will not always reflect back what you give them. And once I really accepted that, something in me genuinely relaxed.

Five Things That Have Helped Me Heal 

I don’t want to just describe the problem. I want to tell you what has made a difference for me, practically, day to day.

1. Say the thing out loud instead of hoping they’ll figure it out.

Most of my expectations were completely silent. I never told anyone what I needed. I just assumed they should know and then felt hurt when they didn’t.

Now, when I need something, I try to actually say it. It feels uncomfortable at first. But it works so much better than waiting and quietly building resentment.

2. Get curious instead of getting hurt.

When someone disappoints me, I’ve started asking myself, “What is their relationship with this?” Someone who can’t give warmth usually never received much of it. Someone who pulls away when things get emotional probably learned early on that emotions weren’t safe.

Understanding this doesn’t mean I accept mistreatment. It just means I stop taking their limitations personally.

3. Stop counting.

I used to keep track, without meaning to, of everything I had given and how little had come back. That invisible scoreboard was exhausting.

Real connection doesn’t work like a ledger. If I am giving because I want something in return, I am not really giving—I am making a deal. Now I try to give because it feels right to give.

And if a relationship consistently leaves me feeling empty, I take that as information.

4. Let disappointment tell you something useful.

Every time something has hurt me badly, there has eventually been something to learn from it. A boundary I hadn’t set. A need I was looking for in the wrong place. A pattern I kept repeating.

Disappointment is not punishment. It is usually pointing at something real.

5. Protect your peace before you need to, not after.

I used to only pull back after I was already hurt. Now I try to pay attention earlier—am I bending myself into shapes to keep this person comfortable? Am I hoping someone will give me something they have shown me, repeatedly, they cannot give?

I try to catch it before it costs me.

What My Life Looks Like Now

I want to be clear, I have not arrived anywhere. I still feel things deeply. I still get hurt.

But it looks different now.

Now, when I feel that old ache—thinking, “Why don’t they care? Why am I never enough?”—I can catch it faster. I can ask myself, “Wait, what am I expecting here? Did I actually say what I needed? Is this person even capable of giving me this?”

Sometimes I let people be exactly who they are without needing them to be different.

Sometimes I choose to step back from a relationship, not with anger, just with clarity.

Sometimes I sit with the quiet truth that not everyone will love me the way I love them—and I don’t fall apart over it the way I used to.

I still care. I don’t want to stop caring. Caring is who I am.

But I am learning to care without tying my peace to the outcome.

If This Sounds Familiar

If you are someone who feels too much, gives too much, and has spent years wondering why sincerity doesn’t seem to protect you from pain, I understand.

You are not too sensitive. You are not asking for too much. You are not broken.

You just believed something that a lot of good-hearted people believe: that if you love people well, they will love you back the same way.

Sometimes they do. But not always. And that is one of the genuinely painful parts of being human.

The thing that has helped me most is this: my peace does not have to depend on what other people do.

I can be warm, I can be real, I can keep caring—and still refuse to hand my inner life over to someone else’s limitations.

That is what forty years eventually taught me. And honestly, I think it might be the most important thing I know.

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About Jyoti Yadav

Jyoti Yadav writes about simple living, minimalism, and finding clarity in a world that often encourages excess. Her life journey reflects experiences that many readers can relate to, making her writing genuine, practical, and deeply personal. Through her articles, she shares real-life insights that help readers navigatge a complicated world with greater ease, purpose, and peace of mind. You can explore more of her work at jyotisimplelife.com.

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How a Toxic Workplace Made Me Doubt Myself

 

I used to think I was just bad at coping with stress.

Every Sunday evening, I felt anxious about the week ahead. My chest would tighten when certain emails appeared in my inbox. Before meetings, I’d rehearse what I wanted to say over and over, trying to avoid saying the wrong thing.

At the time, I blamed myself.

I told myself I needed to be tougher, calmer, better, more resilient. Everyone else seemed to be managing, so I assumed the problem must be me.

What I didn’t understand then was how deeply a toxic workplace can affect your sense of self.

From the outside, everything looked fine. The organization was respected. The leadership team was ‘successful’ and admired. The person at the center of most of my stress was charismatic, confident, and highly regarded by others.

That made it even harder to trust my own experience.

There was no obvious bullying. No shouting. No dramatic incidents I could point to and say, “This is why I’m struggling.” Instead, it was a slow accumulation of smaller things.

Conversations that left me feeling strangely ashamed. Criticism disguised as ‘advice.’ Moments where I’d walk away confused, wondering whether I’d misunderstood what had just happened.

Sometimes I was praised warmly. Other times I was ignored or subtly undermined. Team dynamics left me feeling paranoid and excluded. The inconsistency kept me constantly trying to prove myself.

So I worked harder.

I became more careful, more accommodating, more self-critical. I thought if I communicated perfectly and performed well enough, things would improve.

But they didn’t.

Eventually, I realized I had started losing trust in myself. I second-guessed simple decisions. I apologized constantly. I became emotionally exhausted from monitoring other people’s moods and trying to avoid conflict.

Then one day in a team meeting I remember having a moment where I realized my work environment replicated my home environment growing up. Different people of course, but the same characters. The charismatic boss being the narcissist, surrounded by ‘enablers’—all keen to minimize, justify, or excuse the toxic behavior. In that moment I saw it for what it was—narcissistic abuse in the workplace.

Looking back now, I can see how unhealthy environments often condition us to disconnect from our own instincts. We become so focused on keeping the peace, pleasing others, or avoiding criticism or even focused on our ambitions that we stop noticing what our mind and body are trying to tell us.

Mine had been trying to tell me for a long time.

The turning point came when a friend asked me, “Do you actually feel safe there?”

I remember feeling surprised by the question because I had never thought about emotional safety at work before. I assumed professionalism meant tolerating discomfort. Pushing through. Adapting.

But deep down, I knew the answer.

No, I didn’t feel safe.

Not physically, but psychologically.

I didn’t feel able to speak openly without consequences. I didn’t feel comfortable making mistakes. I didn’t feel calm, grounded, or secure in myself anymore. Everybody competed for the approval of the boss, which I can see in hindsight was used strategically.

Admitting that was painful, but it was also the beginning of something important.

For the first time, I stopped seeing my anxiety as personal failure and started recognizing it as information.

My body was responding to an environment that constantly kept me in self-doubt.

Healing didn’t happen overnight. It took time to rebuild confidence and reconnect with my own voice again. But slowly, I stopped minimizing what I had experienced.

And I stopped blaming myself for being affected by it.

I think many people are carrying workplace experiences they haven’t fully acknowledged because the harm doesn’t always look dramatic from the outside. Sometimes it simply looks like slowly becoming smaller, quieter, and more uncertain of yourself. Professional experience should increase confidence… not diminish it.

After I left, I felt almost instant relief, and a sense of my confidence and self-trust quickly returned. It renewed the sense that it wasn’t me or my fault. I was having an understandable response to being in a toxic situation, full of toxic, narcissistic dynamics.

And the experience only helped inform my understanding and ability to recognize this later on, speaking to others who feel the same at work. It’s not uncommon that we find ourselves in ‘familiar dynamics’—even at work. But what feels familiar is not necessarily healthy.

If you recognize yourself in this, I hope you know this:

You are not weak for being affected by an unhealthy environment.

We all, as humans, are deeply impacted by the spaces and relationships we spend our lives in. And sometimes the first step toward healing is simply allowing yourself to tell the truth about what those spaces or situations have done to you.

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About Dr. Sarah Davies

Dr. Sarah Davies is a chartered counseling psychologist and trauma therapist based in London, UK. She is author of three practical self-help guides for recovery to narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships; How to Leave A Narcissist… For Good, Raised By Narcissists and Narcissists At Work. For more information, you can view her website at drsarahdavies.com.

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Overcoming Codependency: Breaking the Cycle of Unhealthy Relationships

“A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.” ~Melody Beattie

From a young age, I felt insecure in my own skin. I was a highly sensitive child and, subsequently, struggled with low self-worth for most of my life.

Although I had many friends and a good family, I consistently looked for approval outside of myself. I grew up believing that the opinions of others were the only accurate representations of my core worth.

As a teenager, I witnessed the crumbling and eventual demise of my parents’ marriage. During these years, I felt a lot like an island.

I was often plagued with a dark, mysterious unhappiness. The standard teenage growing pains conglomerated with the trauma of losing my familial identity. In a desperate attempt to counter these negative feelings, I sought the approval of others; when it was not provided, I felt like a failure.

I was caught up in a vicious cycle of seeking outside confirmation that I was good enough.

At school, I adopted the role of boy-crazy-funny-girl. I wanted to be adored and nurtured and cherished.

I kept a list of all the cute boys at my school and spent hours daydreaming about a blissful, fairy tale love.

I consistently focused on seeking happiness outside of myself. This habitual practice, over time, led to an inability to be content unless something or someone was providing validation. Most of the time, I felt like I was not good enough.

This falsely instilled belief led me into a decade-long struggle with codependency.

The first codependent relationship I was involved in began when I was nineteen. He was ten years older than I was, and, unbeknownst to me at the time, a cocaine addict.

Our routine was unhealthy and unproductive. We would spend our weekends drinking and gambling at a local pool hall. More often than not, I spent my entire weekly paycheck by the end of Saturday night.

He belittled me, called me names, and consistently criticized my appearance and weight. He compared me to his previous girlfriends. I began to see myself as an incomplete person, one who was in need of major repairs and upgrades. I was so emotionally fragile that the wind could’ve knocked me over.

In a frantic effort to self-preserve, I adopted several fear-based behaviors. I became obsessed with him. I was controlling and jealous. I needed to know everything about his past. I wanted desperately for him to accept me.

Over the ten months we spent together, I neglected my body and mind. My weight dropped a staggering thirty pounds. I was completely disconnected from my family and friends. I developed severe anxiety and suffered crippling panic attacks. I knew something had to change, so I gathered the courage and left him behind.

I thought that I was rid of this unhealthy and unsatisfying lifestyle, but the bad habits carried into my next two relationships.

I spent four years with a person that I loved very much; however, his alcohol dependency brought all of my insecurities and controlling behavior back into play.

We spent four years flip-flopping between wonderful loving moments and horrific physical fights that left us both numb and depressed.

When this relationship ended, I sought comfort in yet another unavailable partner, one that could not provide me with the stability that I so badly needed.

Such is the nature of the codependent person. We seek out what is familiar to us, but not necessarily what is good for us.

After logging close to a decade-worth of codependent hours, I finally faced myself. I knew that if I didn’t make significant changes, I would be forever trapped in a life that was unconducive to my spiritual and emotional growth.

In a scene eerily similar to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love bathroom breakdown, I faced the music. I got myself a small apartment and started my recovery.

The first few days spent alone were absolutely torturous. I cried and cried. I had trouble doing basic tasks, like walking my dog or getting groceries. I had completely turned inward, nurturing my turmoil like an old friend. Anxiety-ridden and lonely, I did the only thing I could think of: I asked for help.

The first step I took was ordering Melody Beattie’s book Codependent No More. This is probably the most significant self-improvement book I have ever read. I felt a weight being lifted as I read, page by page.

Finally, I was able to understand all of the behaviors, feelings, and emotions I had struggled with for so long. I was a textbook case, my highlighter affirmed as I completed the “codependency checklist.” Perhaps some of these questions will speak to you, as well.

• Do you feel responsible for other people—their feelings, thoughts, actions, choices, wants, needs, well-being, and destiny?
• Do you feel compelled to help people solve their problems or try to take care of their feelings?
• Do you find it easier to feel and express anger about injustices done to others than about injustices done to you?
• Do you feel safest and most comfortable when you are giving to others?
• Do you feel insecure and guilty when someone gives to you?
• Do you feel empty, bored, and worthless if you don’t have someone else to take care of, a problem to solve, or a crisis to deal with?
• Are you often unable to stop talking, thinking, and worrying about other people and their problems?
• Do you lose interest in your own life when you are in love?
• Do you stay in relationships that don’t work and tolerate abuse in order to keep people loving you?
• Do you leave bad relationships only to form new ones that don’t work, either?

(You can read more about the habits and patterns of codependent people here.)

After acknowledging my codependency, I connected with an online support group for family members of addicts/alcoholics. This gave me a platform to share my story, without judgment, and little by little, I healed my aching heart.

The most significant things I learned on this journey are:

1. Without change, nothing changes.

This is such a simple yet profound truth. It’s reminiscent of Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The cycle of codependency can only be overcome by establishing and nurturing a super-loving relationship with yourself. Otherwise, you will continually find yourself in unhealthy, codependent relationships.

2. We can’t control others, and it is not our job to do so.

Over the years, I was constantly trying to control and micromanage other people’s behavior in an effort to escape my own negative feelings.

I chose partners with alcohol and drug dependencies. Often, I chose angry and avoidant men. By focusing on what was wrong with them, I could ignore what was empty and unfulfilled in me.

I thought, naively, that this would give me a feeling of stability. In fact, it did the opposite. Surrendering the need to control other people provides us the necessary space to connect with ourselves.

3. Love and obsessions are not the same.

I falsely believed for many years that love and obsession were one and the same. I gave so much of myself to my partners, naively thinking that this was the road to happiness.

I’ve learned that healthy love requires both partners to have unique, individual identities outside of the romantic relationship. Time alone, with friends, and to work on personal projects allows you to really connect when you are together, without feeling suffocated. We build trust when we afford ourselves and our partners some breathing room.

For many years I neglected my own needs. I now prioritize personal time to do individual activities: reading, writing, walking, reflecting. I started to heal once I learned to incorporate self-love rituals into my life. One of my favorite things to do is spend the evening in a warm bubble bath, light some candles, and listen to Alan Watts lectures.

4. Life is not an emergency.

This is a biggie! I consistently lived in a high-stress vortex—terrified of people, abandonment, and life itself.

I worried so much about all of the things that were outside of my control—often, other people. I realize now that life is meant to be enjoyed and savored. Good and bad things will happen, but with a centered and balanced heart, we can get over any obstacles.

The key to balance, for me, is to live fully in every moment, accepting life for what it is. Even when I’m feeling down, I know that the Universe has my back and everything in life is unfolding as it should.

If you don’t hold this belief, it might help to remember that you have your own back, and you can handle whatever is coming. When you trust in yourself and focus on yourself instead of others, it’s much easier to enjoy life and stop living in fear.

—

I have assembled a group of super-hero coaches and teachers that have helped me significantly over the years in my quest for self-improvement. I have loving support and encouragement from so many sources. It’s my dream to be able to give some of that back to the world. I hope I have done that with this post.

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About Ariane Michaud

When not devouring every foreign film she can get her hands on, Ariane loves snuggling with her pug and running tirelessly down the road towards self-fulfillment. Though she is excessively organized, she is spontaneous when it comes to love.

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The Problem with Being the Easy One

“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.” ~François de La Rochefoucauld

“So, in your relationship, do your partner’s needs always dictate how things go?”

My therapist looked at me quizzically after I’d just shared with him that our dinner plans had suddenly changed the night before because my partner was tired from a long day at work, and I just went along with what he needed.

He had initiated a night out, I had dressed up and prepared for a restaurant meal, and when I arrived at his place, he was exhausted and decided he wanted to stay in and defrost something instead. In the moment I said, “I don’t mind—happy to do whatever you want,” and I meant it. I genuinely, completely meant it.

Except that later, as I recounted the story sitting in the therapy chair and on the other side of my therapist’s question, I noticed myself defending him and defending my position. Being a therapist myself, I know that when I defend anything, something is amiss.

As I sat with myself, I realized that the truth was the last thing I wanted that night was a defrosted meal.

I have been a fawner for most of my life, though I didn’t always have that word for it. I just thought I was easy-going, flexible, accommodating, and deeply attuned to the people around me.

I’ve always thought my flexibility was a virtue and the sensitivity I had to others was a gift, and in many ways that’s true. They make for great skills as a therapist.

What I could not yet see was that underneath those qualities, woven so deeply into my personality that they had become almost indistinguishable from who I believed myself to be, were patterns of self-abandonment so subtle and so refined over decades that they no longer felt like patterns at all. They just felt like me.

That is partly why fawning can be so difficult to recognize. It doesn’t feel like trauma. It feels like being thoughtful, accommodating, emotionally intelligent, and deeply attuned to the people around you.

You are praised for it. You become the easy one, the loving one, the person who keeps everything harmonious and connected.

It can genuinely feel good to be needed in this way, and when you get the external validation for it as well, it becomes a reinforcing loop that keeps you loved externally. But eventually the body and your relationships begin carrying the cost of everything the personality has learned not to feel.

The larger and more visible expressions of the pattern become easier to catch over time. You build awareness, feel them showing up in your body before they take hold, and learn to respond differently.

But the subtle ones… they very sneakily become part of your identity. Built into the way you view yourself and the way you do life. The super easy, completely convincing way I would say, “I don’t mind, you choose,” and I believed it and commended myself for it. After all, I was flexible.

Which makes sense, really, because fawning is ultimately about one thing, the terror of disconnection.

In intimate relationships especially, where the connection is your anchor of safety, rupture can be felt as genuine terror.

The fear is that if I am too much, not enough, or inconveniently myself… you will leave, and I will be alone. So I lean in, read your temperature, and adjust myself accordingly, attune and give you what you need, because as long as I do that, the connection holds.

From the outside, fawning looks like consent. But the body is always saying no.

As a fawner, my sense of safety lives entirely outside of my own body, in the temperature of yours. As a result, I become extraordinarily skilled at reading that temperature. I know, before you have even said a word, whether you are okay or not okay, present or absent, open or closed, and I shape myself accordingly. We are master shapeshifters.

Who do I need to be so that I can keep this safe?

That question hums beneath the surface of so many interactions, so subtly and for so long, that I stop hearing it and just become who I need to be.

And in order to bring all of that attention to you, I have to leave myself. I have to override my own body, my own feelings, instincts, and needs, and I do it so automatically and completely that after long enough it no longer registers as a choice. This is just me.

Until, of course, a life event comes along and rattles the cage.

To be clear, fawning is not a pattern I want to demonize. It is an incredibly intelligent safety strategy; it is the nervous system finding a pathway toward safety through connection and accommodation when fighting, leaving, or shutting down does not feel possible.

The issue is not the response itself, but when it becomes so chronic and so embedded that we lose contact with who we actually are beneath it.

The cost of this disconnection always comes. Often with a disconnection with the body. We cannot unconsciously fawn and also be connected to our physiology at the same time.

It also comes with a sense of resentment that builds in the background, without a clear place to pin it because you were never allowed to have it in the first place.

Maybe with a relationship that feels close but somehow isn’t, because you are performing inside it rather than living inside it. Maybe it comes as the persistent sense that people don’t really know you, understand you, or appreciate you. Feeling unseen, unheard, and unvalued is commonplace. Maybe the cost is in your health. After decades of suppressing who you are, the body begins screaming with symptoms you can no longer ignore.

Underneath all of the accommodation, there is a part of you that is always waiting. 

Maybe if I just do enough, you will finally see me.

Maybe if I give you what you need, you will be who I need you to be.

Maybe if I am very, very good, you will then be good to me.

The hope that someone will finally see you, finally reciprocate, finally show up the way you keep showing up for them, is the very thing that keeps the pattern alive and breathing.

Hope, for a fawner, keeps you waiting and waiting for something to finally change. It is what keeps the loop open.

And the moment connection wavers or breaks, when silence or distance shows up or uncertainty settles between two people mid-conflict, we can find ourselves suddenly adrift. I have felt it so many times, that feeling of swimming in open water with no ground beneath me, not knowing what I am feeling, where I am, or what comes next, reaching for something, anything, to hold me in place.

In those moments, the mind gets very, very busy. If the thing that was keeping me anchored—the warmth of the connection, the felt sense of being okay in your eyes—is suddenly gone, the mind will clutch, grasp, and reach for anything and everything.

Sometimes it goes to fixing. Sometimes to a fantasy of a different life, a different future, a different partner. Sometimes to fault-finding, building a very convincing case for why I am better off without them. And when you look closely at all of it, you begin to see the same impulse moving through each one—the nervous system reaching for any lever that might restore a sense of control or safety.

It is a beautiful, exhausting illusion. A cognitive loop that keeps you activated and stressed and distanced from yourself.

What we actually need to feel in those moments is the groundlessness itself. This is the gateway.

The unsteady ground is the passage to our own inner ground. To feel the loss of connection, the emptiness and aloneness that arrives in its absence as something that can be survived, something that does not have to be immediately fixed or fled from or explained away. And to discover that in this groundlessness and in this aloneness, you are not only still here, but you are in fact at home. That something inside you that holds strong, even when the external anchor is gone.

It is only from here that anything real becomes possible. Including the thing that frightens most fawners more than the disconnection itself.

Speaking.

When we try to speak up, the terror can genuinely be visceral. Something in the body contracts and shuts down, the voice gets crackly or disappears completely, the mouth goes dry and the body can be shaky. All because the nervous system has learned over a very long time that conflict, rejection, and criticism are all deeply unsafe. And it is not going to let you forget that, no matter how many times you tell yourself that was then and things are different now.

The body continues to protect you the only way it has ever known how.

Breaking this pattern is ultimately about learning to feel again.

Underneath the performance and all the years of shaping yourself to the needs of others, there is a whole emotional world that has been waiting.

In so many people I work with, we meet a well of fear that was never allowed to be felt, stores of anger that had nowhere to go and got stuffed down, depths of grief for all that was lost or never possible, and a tenderness toward yourself that perhaps nobody ever modelled for you.

Coming back to yourself means growing the capacity to feel all of it—slowly and at a pace that feels safe, in the body and in the presence of someone safe enough to hold it.

We hurt in relationships, and we heal in relationships.

If you are someone who fawns, please do not be hard on yourself. This pattern is woven into your identity, your relationships, and the way you move through the world. The threat your nervous system feels when you consider speaking up, disappointing someone, or risking a loss is very, very real.

It is a deeply embodied survival response, shaped by everything—culture, gender, religion, family systems—and it asks for patience and compassion, not self-criticism. Whatever the origin of your particular flavor of fawning, it made enormous sense given the world you were navigating. It kept you safe.

So be kind to yourself. Be genuinely, tenderly kind.

The pathway out is not to hold tighter. It is to learn to be with the open water. To cultivate, slowly and with enormous patience, an internal ground so rooted and so genuinely yours that the uncertainty outside loses its power to undo you.

It took me years, a deeply embodied practice, a great deal of time in my own company, therapeutic relationships where I was held safely enough to try something different, and an intimate relationship where both of us have named our patterns and agreed to hold space for each other to move through them. Where I can practice saying the thing I would once have swallowed whole and be met with understanding rather than reaction.

What made all of this possible was safety. Inside myself, inside the therapy room, and inside my intimate relationship.

And what I know to be true is that when you build enough inner ground, when you are genuinely not afraid of being alone, not afraid of conflict or rupture or someone’s disappointment, something profound shifts. Life begins to rearrange itself around the truth of you. What needs to go goes. What is truly meant for you stays. And you finally land in yourself.

There will almost certainly be losses. People who needed your smallness and silence will struggle with your changing, but that disintegration is the pattern breaking. And what becomes possible on the other side—the relationships, the life, and the version of yourself that is actually, truly, fully you—is worth every uncomfortable moment of getting there.

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About Maraya Rodostianos

Maraya is an integrative somatic therapist offering in-person sessions in Melbourne and online worldwide. Blending modern neuroscience on trauma and the nervous system with psychotherapeutic tools and ancient wisdom traditions, she takes a holistic approach that integrates mind, body, spirit, and the nervous system. She works at the intersection of trauma, authenticity, embodied spirituality, and well-being, guiding clients to release what blocks them from living as their most authentic, whole, and embodied selves.
 You can find her at http://marayarae.com. Facebook / Substack / Instagram

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Learning How to Live Life to the Fullest with Mental Illness

There is a famous Latin phrase that I absolutely love: Carpe diem. It means “Seize the day.” Younger people might be more familiar with the phrase “You only live once,” or YOLO. Both phrases encourage people to live their lives to the fullest.

I have struggled with depression and anxiety since my childhood, making it difficult to live by these phrases and enjoy life. I’ve missed out on a lot of precious moments with loved ones.

Recently, however, my mental health has been taking a turn for the better, and I’ve been doing my best to make up for all the quality time I missed. 

I’m a practicing Christian, and my church recently had a gathering or social event. Usually at social events, I’m a wallflower. I don’t participate much, preferring to watch and laugh from the sidelines. At this particular gathering, I was often front and center, dancing a lot.

One fellow church member even told me he didn’t know I danced like that. I can’t dance, by the way, but I assume he was saying he couldn’t imagine me dancing so freely. It felt really good to let loose and enjoy myself with my fellow church members.

There were family members at the gathering with me, and I would not have participated if they weren’t there. I hardly make decisions without my family’s input because my anxiety gets in the way, and I have a hard time trusting my own decisions. My confidence clearly could use more work, but for right now, I’m glad I had a good time at the gathering. This wasn’t the only recent time I stepped outside of my comfort zone, though.

I have been participating in my church more and speaking up Bible study meetings. I usually don’t share my thoughts in group settings because I generally don’t like when attention is on me. However, I’ve been getting more comfortable with attention.

Every week, my church holds prayer meetings, and one of my church’s members recently asked me to lead a prayer meeting on Zoom. I was nervous about taking on the task, but I decided to accept it.

After the meeting, everyone told me I did a wonderful job. Some even told a family member of mine how well the meeting went.

During the meeting, I did a small presentation on the history of Mother’s Day, and a member who saw the presentation was able to recall details of it and share them with another member who hadn’t attended. That made me so happy because that means she was actually listening and paying attention. It also means she enjoyed the meeting.

These two recent events, the social gathering and the prayer meeting, reminded me of how far I’ve come on my journey of dealing with my depression and anxiety.

My family has also noticed the change. I mentioned earlier that I’ve missed bonding moments.

During a recent conversation with a family member, we had a discussion about the family going to see “Superman: Man of Steel” in the theater some time ago. I mentioned that I didn’t go that day, and my family member replied that she remembers me having my “moments” during that time.

It’s true that back then I was dealing with a lot of depression episodes, and I isolated myself a lot. The isolation only made my depression worse, and my relationship with my family members worsened as well.

They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t joining in on group activities. I also got offended very easily, making my family members feel they had to be extra careful with me. They believed they were walking on eggsshells when interacting with me.

Part of me believed what I was going through was normal. Another part of me knew something was off, but I didn’t want to admit I was dealing with depression. I didn’t want to deal with the stigma.

As time went on, though, I started to grow tired of dealing with my depression. I wanted to be happy. I wanted healthier relationships with my loved ones. Healthier relationships with my family started by building a relationship with my therapist.

For a long time, I didn’t want to talk about my depression with anyone because I was ashamed. However, my therapist helped me feel comfortable discussing my mental illness. Once I felt more comfortable, I started talking with my family about my mental health.

Opening up to my family helped them understand me and built a stronger bond between us. My family may not fully be able to understand me and my decisions, but they try. That’s what’s important because it helps me feel understood.

I went too long assuming my family wasn’t interested in understanding me and believing they thought of me as weird. My assumptions were wrong. Not only do my family members want to understand me, but they also accept me completely.

I made the same assumptions about friends and my church family as well, so I avoided getting involved in church. I mostly went straight home after service, skipping fellowshipping and socializing. Just like I was wrong about my family, I was wrong about my fellow church members. Ever since I started participating more in church, I’ve been receiving nothing but support and praise.

The love and encouragement I’ve been receiving have helped to reshape my thinking. Not everyone is judging me, and there are people who are happy to have me in their lives. This helps me feel much more comfortable being myself.

I might run into people who will be mean and judge me, but I am surrounded by more people who support me than not. I’m learning that what others think about me often has nothing to do with my worth.

If you’re like me and you’re dealing with depression and anxiety, know that you’re not alone. Not only are there many people who are living with mental illness like you, you have people around who love you. And there’s a good chance these people would be willing to help you if you let them in.

Opening up and giving your trust to others is not easy. However, when love and happiness pour into your heart, you’ll be glad you took the risk and opened the door. Don’t let mental illness isolate you and keep you from enjoying life. Carpe diem, my friend. Carpe diem.

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About Charli Dee

Charli Dee is a blogger who lives in the United States. She writes on a variety of topics, but she mostly focuses on writing about her experience living with Turner syndrome and mental illness. When she is not writing, she can be found spending time with family and friends. Visit her blog https://lifewithcharli.home.blog and say hello. You can also find her on social media: Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

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What I Learned from a Lifetime of Feeling Different

“Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.” ~Henry David Thoreau

I’ve spent most of my life feeling like I was standing just outside the circle.

Not always, but whenever I stepped back and looked at the whole of my life, the thread running through has been a sense of being on the outside looking in.

I think that feeling drove me for a long time. I wanted to prove something, to earn my place through effort and excellence. I wanted to be the kind of person people were glad to know.

I pushed myself in sports, trying to make great plays to draw appreciation from the crowd. I dreamed of playing my bass guitar with such energy that the people listening would feel it moving through them. I built up my resume and did all I could to become a great teacher, the kind who changes lives.

Those desires came from a deep place in me. The love of the game, the pull of music, and the joy of teaching well were all true expressions of my heart. But woven into all of it, underneath all of it, was also a longing for connection.

Each of those aspirations became realities in one form or another, and I gave myself to them fully. What I found inside them, though, was something I hadn’t expected. The belonging I’d been striving for wasn’t something I could will from the outside.

I was in my early twenties when I arrived in Philadelphia for graduate school, still carrying all of this with me without knowing it. A friend brought me to a party one cold night, a gathering of close friends in someone’s backyard, and we were all standing around a pool.

The group was chatting away and enjoying the evening. I tried moving from one small conversation to another, searching for a way in. Nothing worked.

After an hour or so, I stood at the edge of the pool, and something moved me.

Without thinking, I stepped off the edge into the deep end. Fully dressed. The cold water closed over me, and I stayed under for a few long seconds.

My friend was embarrassed. I was numb. We drove home in silence, me soaking wet in the passenger seat.

I couldn’t explain what I’d done, not that night and not for a long time after. The memory sat with me for thirty years, surfacing from time to time, painful and strange. And beneath the strangeness of it, there was something else, a layer of embarrassment I hadn’t yet found the courage to look at directly.

The embarrassment went deeper than the act itself. Underneath it was something I had kept hidden even from myself, which was how badly I had wanted to belong that night and how exposed that wanting had left me.

For years, I carried shame about that night, as though needing to be seen and valued was a weakness or a flaw in my character. It took me decades to understand that the need itself was never the problem.

I read something a while back that made me think. For nearly all of human history, people lived in small bands, twenty or thirty or fifty people, and your place in that group was everything. It determined whether you ate, whether you were protected, whether you and your children survived.

I also read that the brain processes the pain of being excluded through the same pathways it uses for physical injury. So, while my cold plunge was odd and unexpected even for me, it was also a response to something ancient and true.

Researchers who study this have put the need to belong in the same category as hunger and thirst. Needs that every human being has, whether we recognize it or not.

I didn’t know any of this when I stepped into that pool in Philadelphia. And after much painful reflection, I’m realizing now that I wasn’t needy in a shameful way. I was simply a young man painfully alone in a crowd.

I think, in that moment, I chose the rejection I could control over the rejection I couldn’t. The cold water was honest. It didn’t pretend I belonged, and if I was going to be outcasted, I decided to be that fully.

What I’ve come to see is that the humiliation I experienced at the party and afterward in thinking about it for all these years was part of my becoming who I’ve always been meant to be.

Because I know what it’s like to feel unseen, and I know the shame of feeling it, I can recognize that struggle in other people, and I can help. I’ve lived too close to the ache of isolation to mistake it for something else or to look past it when someone else is suffering.

Thirty years has been enough time to watch the patterns of my life come into focus. And what I see now is that the feeling I spent so long trying to escape was giving me insight into something I couldn’t have understood otherwise: in one way or another, we all need belonging.

When I walk into a room today, whether it’s a party, a family gathering, or at work, my attention moves toward the person standing alone.

The one who’s laughing a little too eagerly at something that wasn’t that funny. The one attached to their phone because it’s easier than sitting there without a purpose. The one who arrived hoping tonight would be different and who’s starting to wonder if it will be.

I know that person. I’ve been that person, and in some ways, I still am that person.

The feeling of not belonging doesn’t disappear just because you become aware of it and work on it, at least it hasn’t for me. It eases at times, but it never fully leaves. And I’ve stopped waiting for the day it does.

What I’ve found instead is that the pain becomes something you can carry without being crushed by it. It becomes a part of who you are that you learn to accept, relate to, and even draw strength from, because it keeps you honest about what it means to be human.

That’s what my life’s journey has become. What I want people to know and to feel in their bones when they leave a room is this: You are seen. You are heard. You are valued. And you are loved.

I’ve had to be honest with myself about the limits of those words. When I was hiding the parts of myself I was afraid to show, no reassurance from the outside could fully reach me. And sometimes the people around me weren’t looking carefully enough to find what was good in me anyway.

I had to admit that the belonging I was yearning for wasn’t always being blocked by my own walls. Sometimes it just wasn’t being offered. Let’s face it, the world can be a cold and cruel place at times.

I’ve learned that we tend to give others what we most need ourselves, and that’s certainly true for me. The pain I experienced didn’t just wound me. It showed me what I was made for.

Not everyone will see you for who you really are. Some people will be tuned to a different frequency, and that will hurt. But the more honestly you offer yourself to the world, the more you give the right people a chance to know you.

That belief has been tested and proven in my own life. In my twenties, I thought it would be funny to bring a homemade Key Lime pie to a New Year’s Eve party full of people trying hard to look cool. It was kind of like bringing baked goods to a nightclub and a perfect example of my off-beat sense of humor.

One young woman laughed out loud when I offered up the pie and joined me at the kitchen table for a slice. We talked and enjoyed each other’s company until the party faded into the background.

That young woman became my wife.

We’ve been together for over twenty-five years, and she’s since told me she never liked Key Lime pie. The truth was, she just wanted to get to know the guy who was brave enough to be himself in a room full of people pretending to be someone else.

The qualities that make you most yourself are visible to people who know how to look. You have a place in this world right here and now, as you are, not once you have earned it. And when you show others what’s true about you, you give the right people a chance to find you.

The calling to see people, to help them open up and truly belong, isn’t something I chose. I found it by following my own wound, my own need for the same thing, all the way to its other side. It’s been an ongoing journey with hard falls along the way, but it’s the most valuable thing I have ever stumbled into.

The young man I was when I stepped into that pool in Philadelphia wasn’t broken. I was, in my own hurting and wordless way, searching for something true. And although I still struggle with belonging from time to time, I’ve found it.

I’ve learned to belong to myself. I’ve learned to see the pain that people carry but rarely name and to recognize it without judgment because I know it from the inside. That sight has changed me from someone who was grasping for a place to belong into someone who tries to create that place for others.

The outside is a hard place to learn. But it teaches you to see.

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About Daniel H. Shapiro

Dr. Daniel H. Shapiro is keynote speaker, author, and mentor. He is passionate about human connection and the stories we carry with us. For more information about his book, The 5 Practices of the Caring Mentor, or his mentoring and speaking services, check out yourinherentgoodness.com.

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How My Need to Clean Was a Childhood Coping Skill

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~E.E. Cummings

When I was a little girl, I had the smallest bedroom in the house.

It was tiny. Honestly, probably the size of a small walk-in closet. But it was mine. And for the first time, I got to choose what it looked like.

I remember picking out baby blue wallpaper with little pink flowers on it. My mom put it halfway up the wall with a wood border, and the top half stayed white. I chose a soft blue carpet to match. I had a twin bed, a small desk, and just enough space on the floor to sit next to my bed.

It wasn’t much, but I loved that room. I was proud of it.

Every morning in the summer, I had a routine. My mom would leave for work, and I’d wake up and pour myself a bowl of cereal. Back then, I was a picky eater and pretty much only ate sugar. Hello, 1990.

After my breakfast, I’d start cleaning my room and get ready to go to the neighborhood pool down the street.

I made my bed. I picked everything up. I vacuumed the carpet. Every day.

The neighborhood pool didn’t open until noon, and I’d walk there by myself, but before I left, my room had to be clean. It wasn’t something I questioned. It was just what I did.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it. It felt normal. It just felt good. I liked how my room looked when everything was in its place. I liked the way it made me feel.

But I didn’t understand why. I didn’t understand that outside of my room, my life felt anything but calm.

I grew up in a home where you never quite knew what was going to happen next. There was tension, fear, and a constant sense of walking on eggshells.

You didn’t know what kind of mood someone would be in or what might set things off. You learned to pay attention to everything—tone, energy, small shifts—because those mattered.

Even when nothing was happening, it didn’t always feel calm. There was a kind of unpredictability that stayed in the background.

Even as a child, you learn to read energy before you understand it. And when you can’t control what’s happening around you, you find something you can control.

For me, that was my room.

In that space, everything stayed where I put it. Nothing surprised me. Nothing felt unpredictable.

Looking back, I can see that I wasn’t just cleaning. I was creating a sense of stability in a life that didn’t have much of it.

I was giving myself something steady to hold onto. I didn’t have the language for it then, but I feel it now when I think about that little girl, moving around her room, making sure everything was just right before she left for the day.

It wasn’t about perfection. It was about feeling okay. That realization didn’t hit me until recently.

I was cleaning my house, listening to an audiobook. I hadn’t even planned on doing much, but once I got started, I became completely immersed in it.

And it hit me. This isn’t new.

I clean when I’m overwhelmed. I clean when I’m angry. I clean when things feel off.

It’s almost automatic. For a long time, I questioned it. Why can’t I relax when things feel messy? Why do I feel this need to fix everything before I can settle down?

It felt like something in me wouldn’t settle until everything around me was handled.

I’d try to ignore it sometimes and tell myself to sit down, relax, and leave it for later, but it wouldn’t last long. Because I knew how it would end. I wouldn’t feel calm until it was done.

That little bedroom wasn’t just a room. It was the one place I felt safe. It was the only place in my life where I had control.

Cleaning isn’t just something I do. It’s something I go to. It was how I created that feeling, the feeling of calm.

When I saw it that way, something shifted.

It stopped feeling like something I needed to fix and started feeling like something I could understand and even respect.

There are a lot of ways people can cope when life feels overwhelming. A lot of ways people try to regain control when things feel uncertain. And this? This is one that brings me back to myself.

Instead of questioning it, I understood it. Instead of thinking, “Why am I like this?” I thought, “Of course I am.”

A lot of what we do as adults doesn’t start here. It starts much earlier in ways we don’t fully understand at the time.

We adapt. We find ways to cope. We create small pockets of control, safety, and relief wherever we can.

And those patterns don’t just disappear. They follow us. Sometimes quietly, sometimes in ways we don’t even question until something makes us stop and look closer.

For me, it looked like cleaning. Not because I needed everything to be perfect, but because order helped me feel grounded. It gave me something steady to come back to when everything else felt uncertain.

And when I look at it that way, it changes how I see myself. Now, when I find myself wiping down counters or reorganizing a space when I’m overwhelmed, I don’t fight it the way I used to.

I recognize it. It’s familiar. It’s something that’s been with me for a long time. But more than that, it’s something that helped me get through. And maybe that’s the part worth paying attention to.

Not just the pattern itself but what it was doing for me. Because when we start to understand where our behaviors come from, something shifts.

We stop reacting to ourselves. We start seeing the connection. We start realizing that the things we’ve carried with us, sometimes without even noticing, were never random.

They were responses. They were ways of adapting. They were ways of making life feel manageable, even when it wasn’t.

If you find yourself repeating certain behaviors, it may be worth asking what they’re giving you, not just why they’re there.

When you can see that clearly, there’s less judgment, more awareness, and more choice.

That little girl cleaning her room every morning wasn’t trying to be perfect. She was creating something she needed.

And in a lot of ways, I still am.

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About Cylina Miller

Cylina Miller is a writer focused on self-awareness, emotional growth, and understanding the deeper “why” behind our patterns. Through personal experience storytelling, she explores how early experiences shape the way we think, feel, and navigate life. She shares more reflections and resources at: https://cylinamiller.myflodesk.com/zp48cnsbhw.

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