Author: Anne Dranitsaris, Ph.D.

The surprising power of being recognized for gifts and abilities we have yet to discover or appreciate in ourselves.

Today, I attended a meeting of the Rotary Club of Peterborough, where our guest speaker, Noor Ra’fat, spoke about The Power of Being Seen. Her message resonated deeply with me because it connects to something I have long focused on in my writing and my work as a psychotherapist and leadership coach: the process of remembering who we are meant to be.

Noor is a well-known journalist who studied broadcast journalism at Durham College and media studies at Trent University. She has spent the past three years working with Global News Toronto. Her presentation explored the importance of being seen and validated by others, especially when we struggle to recognize our own abilities and potential.

When Others See What We Cannot See in Ourselves

One of the things that struck me about Noor’s presentation was her description of the people who encouraged her along the way. They took the time to recognize her qualities and abilities, offered encouragement, and helped her feel seen. Yet, as she pointed out, those people often had no idea about the inner conflict she was experiencing. They didn’t know about her inner struggle or the difficulty she sometimes had believing what they were telling her about herself.

I think many of us can relate to this. Someone compliments us on how we handled a difficult situation, recognizes our creativity, or tells us we have a natural talent for something. We may feel genuinely pleased, perhaps even a little surprised, because they are recognizing something we have never thought of as particularly special. But almost immediately, our negative self-talk begins questioning their assessment. We tell ourselves that they are just being nice, that anyone could have done what we did, or that they wouldn’t think so highly of us if they really knew us. Before we even have a chance to consider what they are saying, we have found a way to dismiss it.

I know how difficult it can be for people to recognize their own abilities and appreciate what makes them unique. I can’t tell you how often I’ve worked with very successful people who still struggle to see themselves the way others do. They know they can do certain things exceptionally well, yet somehow it never quite translates into what they believe about themselves.

What I find so interesting is how readily we believe the negative things we tell ourselves while questioning the positive things others tell us. We can carry around beliefs about ourselves that we developed as children, long after our experiences have shown us something quite different. Someone recognizes a talent or quality in us, and although it feels good to hear, we have a way of explaining it away. We assume they’re being kind, exaggerating, or simply don’t know us well enough. And because what they’re saying doesn’t fit with what we’ve come to believe about ourselves, we dismiss it rather than considering that perhaps they are seeing something we’ve been unable to see.

Being Seen Is Only the Beginning

This is where I see such an important connection to remembering who we are meant to be. Sometimes the first indication of an ability, a gift, or a possibility we have not recognized comes from another person. Their words can awaken something in us, creating a moment of recognition that feels surprisingly meaningful. We may feel excitement, relief, or an unexpected sense that what they are saying is true, even though it doesn’t fit the way we have learned to think about ourselves.

Yet being seen by someone else is only the beginning of that process. We also have to be willing to take in what they are telling us and allow it to influence how we understand ourselves. Otherwise, the recognition remains something that belongs to the other person, an opinion we appreciate but never quite make our own. We may remember their kindness without ever allowing ourselves to consider that the qualities they recognized are genuinely part of who we are.

Remembering who we are meant to be means being curious about why others see our strengths and unique abilities and we don’t. Instead of automatically dismissing praise, we might instead ask ourselves why it makes us uncomfortable. We can consider that what we believe about ourselves isn’t the whole story, and that some of the abilities and qualities others recognize are expressions of our authentic self that didn’t get the chance to develop.

Being open to receiving how someone sees us is easier said than done. It takes so much more than learning to accept a compliment graciously. We also need to recognize when we’re blocking it because it doesn’t align with our negative self-concept. So often, we jump in and deny it as anything special before we have had the chance to bask in the glow of positive feedback.

There is something particularly powerful about recognizing a quality in ourselves that we have spent years overlooking or dismissing. It can change what we believe is possible for us, especially when we begin to understand that the negative beliefs we have carried are not necessarily accurate descriptions of who we are. They may simply be conclusions we reached long ago, before we had the awareness or capacity to question them.

Paying Forward the Gift of Being Seen

Noor finished her presentation by reminding us that we also have the opportunity to help others feel seen. I particularly appreciated this part of her message because we often underestimate the impact of simply telling someone what we recognize and value in them. We may notice someone’s kindness, thoughtfulness, creativity, courage, or ability to make others feel comfortable without ever thinking to mention it. We assume that people must already know these things about themselves, particularly when their abilities seem so obvious to us.

But as Noor’s experience illustrated, we have no idea what is going on inside another person. Someone we see as capable and confident may struggle with significant self-doubt, while someone whose kindness or thoughtfulness seems effortless may not realize how much those qualities mean to others. A sincere observation or expression of appreciation can help someone recognize an aspect of themselves they have overlooked, discounted, or never fully understood.

I also think there is an important difference between offering generic praise and genuinely seeing another person. When we tell someone what we noticed about their behavior, how they approached a situation, or the unique contribution they made, we give them something meaningful to reflect on. We are helping them see themselves through another perspective, one that may challenge the limitations of their existing self-concept and open the door to a different understanding of who they are.

As I continue writing Remembering Who You Are Meant to Be, today’s presentation reminded me of the important role other people can play in awakening our awareness of our authentic self. Sometimes we need someone else to recognize a gift before we can recognize it ourselves. Their encouragement may be the beginning of remembering. Still, we have to be willing to receive what they reflect back to us, question the beliefs that make us dismiss it, and begin to own the qualities and abilities that are ours.

I also believe one of the most meaningful things we can do for another person is help them see something in themselves that we appreciate and recognize. We don’t always realize how much a compliment matters, even when someone is successful and appears confident. Taking the time to tell someone what we admire, appreciate, or recognize in them doesn’t cost us anything, and if we don’t, we may never know what difference our words have made, but I love the thought that simply helping someone feel seen might encourage them to begin remembering who they are meant to be.

I’m grateful to Noor for sharing her experiences and reminding us how powerful it can be to feel genuinely seen and how much we have to offer others when we take the time to really see them.

Why do we believe we need a dramatic declaration before allowing ourselves to do what we want?

There’s a particular tone people use when they announce they’ve stopped caring what anyone thinks. It’s usually delivered with the conviction of someone who’s just made a major breakthrough in life, perhaps after years of putting up with other people’s opinions, expectations, and unsolicited advice.

“I’ve decided I don’t care anymore. I’m going to say what I think and do what I want.”

Well, good for you! Although I have to admit, whenever I hear this, I’m tempted to ask why you’ve had to become indifferent to the entire human race before allowing yourself to have an opinion.

I’ve heard variations of this declaration from friends, colleagues, and clients for years. Sometimes it comes after a particularly frustrating experience with a family member. Other times, it’s a coworker who’s finally had enough of keeping quiet in meetings or someone who’s reached an age where they’ve apparently decided that worrying about what other people think is no longer a worthwhile use of their remaining years.

There’s often a sense of relief, triumph, and just a touch of defiance in the announcement. You can almost imagine the person mentally tearing up the rule book they’ve been following since childhood and tossing the pieces into the air.

But here’s what strikes me as funny. Even when we’re declaring that we no longer care what other people think, we’re still making our decisions about other people. We haven’t necessarily freed ourselves from their influence. We’ve simply decided to take the opposite position.

And I’m not sure why we have to stop caring before we can give ourselves permission to be who we are.

Apparently, We Need a Formal Declaration

I’ve always been fascinated by how much energy people put into announcing that they’re no longer concerned about other people’s opinions. There’s something wonderfully contradictory about wanting everyone to know that you couldn’t care less what anyone thinks.

It’s a little like announcing that you’ve decided to stop seeking attention and then checking to see who noticed.

Of course, I understand what people are trying to say. They’re tired of censoring themselves, accommodating other people’s preferences, and second-guessing every decision. They’ve spent years being agreeable, reasonable, understanding, and considerate, often at their own expense. Now they’ve had enough.

But instead of saying, “I’ve decided to start making my own choices,” they announce that they don’t care anymore, as though caring itself has been the problem. And that raises an interesting question.

Why does it feel easier to reject other people’s opinions than to simply recognize that we’re entitled to have opinions of our own?

Perhaps because saying we don’t care gives us the emotional permission to do something we’ve never quite felt entitled to do. We can finally say no, express a preference, or make an unpopular decision because we’ve convinced ourselves that nobody else’s feelings matter.

It’s a rather extreme solution to the problem of wanting to choose what to have for dinner without consulting the family.

The Trouble With Being a Good Person

Many of us grew up learning that being a good person meant being considerate of others. We were encouraged to share, cooperate, avoid hurting people’s feelings, and behave in ways that made life pleasant for everyone around us.

Somewhere along the way, however, we confused being considerate with being responsible for how other people felt about us.

We learned to anticipate disappointment, recognize disapproval, and adjust ourselves accordingly. We became sensitive to the raised eyebrow, the disappointed sigh, and that particularly effective parental observation, “Well, if that’s what you want to do.”

Anyone who’s heard that sentence knows it rarely meant enthusiastic support for their decision.

Eventually, we became so accomplished at monitoring other people’s reactions that we no longer needed them to say anything. We could anticipate their objections before they had a chance to express them.

We knew Aunt Margaret would be offended if we didn’t attend the family dinner, our friend would be disappointed if we declined her invitation, and our colleague would be annoyed if we disagreed with his brilliant idea. We could conduct an entire imaginary conversation with these people, complete with their objections and our apologies, without any of them being present. And then we’d make our decisions accordingly.

It’s remarkable how many people we can accommodate without actually speaking to them.

The Rebellion Isn’t Quite the Freedom We Think It Is

Eventually, all that accommodating can become exhausting. We begin resenting the expectations we’ve worked so hard to meet, particularly when nobody seems to appreciate how much effort we’re putting into keeping everyone happy.

Then comes the breakthrough.

“I don’t care what anyone thinks anymore! I have to speak my truth!”

Suddenly, we’re saying no, speaking our minds, and making decisions without seeking approval. It can feel wonderfully liberating, particularly if we’ve spent years worrying that someone might be upset with us.

But there’s a catch.

When we decide to act because we’ve blamed others for keeping us quiet and have had enough of other people’s expectations, we’re still reacting to those expectations. We’ve moved from doing what people want to proving that they can’t tell us what to do.

The people whose opinions once shaped our choices still influence us. They’re simply getting a different reaction.

I see this as one way our adaptive persona operates. When we’re concerned about approval, it protects us by encouraging us to accommodate others. When we’ve had enough and feel resentful, it can protect us by becoming defiant. In both cases, our behavior is organized around other people and what they might think, want, or do.

Our authentic self doesn’t need us to rebel against anyone to express what we want. It needs us to develop the capacity to listen to ourselves and exercise personal authority.

And that’s where things become interesting, because many of us have learned to be accommodating or defiant without ever learning how to simply choose.

What If We Actually Do Care?

Here’s the part I find particularly amusing about the whole business of not caring. Most of us do care, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

We care about the people in our lives. We want to maintain relationships, be considerate, and avoid unnecessarily hurting people’s feelings. We value the opinions of people we respect, and sometimes their disappointment genuinely matters to us.

Why should we have to pretend otherwise?

I can care that my friend is disappointed because I’ve declined her invitation and still decided that I’d rather stay home. I can care that someone disagrees with my opinion without changing it to make them comfortable. I can even care that a family member is annoyed with me and allow them the pleasure of being annoyed.

After all, I’m sure I’ve provided plenty of opportunities for people to be annoyed with me over the years. It seems only fair that they should be allowed to enjoy the experience without my rushing in to make everything better.

The problem isn’t that we care. It’s that we’ve confused caring about someone’s feelings with being responsible for preventing them. And that confusion can keep us extraordinarily busy making decisions to please others and blaming them for not letting us have any space.

We explain why we can’t attend something, provide elaborate justifications for decisions that don’t require them, and reassure people that our choices aren’t personal. Sometimes we offer so much explanation that we practically invite the other person to negotiate.

“I’d love to come, but I’m really tired, and I’ve had a busy week, and I need to catch up on a few things, although perhaps if I finish early…”

At which point, we’ve handed them several perfectly good reasons to explain why we should come anyway.

Sometimes “Thanks, but I’m going to stay home tonight” is a complete and perfectly considerate response.

The Real Challenge Is Giving Ourselves Permission

I think one of the reasons people announce that they don’t care anymore is that they’ve never really learned to give themselves permission to want what they want, leading to an undeveloped capacity for healthy entitlement. They’ve learned to seek approval, anticipate objections, and justify their decisions. When they finally become frustrated enough, declaring that they don’t care provides a way around the internal resistance. It’s almost as though they’ve discovered a loophole in their own psychological rule book.

If I care what people think, I have to accommodate them. But if I declare that I don’t care, I’m finally allowed to do what I want.

Unfortunately, this leaves us with the rather ridiculous idea that personal freedom requires emotional indifference. It doesn’t. And announcing that we no longer care doesn’t magically give us the psychological capacities we need to make our own choices.

We have to develop two very important capacities of the authentic self: healthy entitlement, agency & authority. Healthy entitlement allows us to recognize that our needs, wants, and preferences matter just as much as anyone else’s. Agency gives us the capacity to act on our own behalf, while authority allows us to make decisions without requiring someone else’s permission or approval.

These are capacities of our authentic self that need to be developed. Without them, we can spend years swinging between accommodating everyone and defiantly announcing that we’re finished accommodating anyone. Either way, our adaptive persona is still running the show.

You Can Care and Do It Anyway

There’s something wonderfully freeing about being able to care what someone thinks without having to do what they want. We can listen to their opinions, understand their disappointment, and even feel a little uncomfortable about our choices without rushing to apologize, justify ourselves, or change our minds.

And sometimes we’ll choose to accommodate someone because we genuinely want to. That’s the beauty of having personal authority. We get to decide when to say yes and when to say no, without making either choice a declaration of independence.

So perhaps the next time we’re tempted to announce that we don’t care what anyone thinks anymore, we could try something a little less dramatic: I care what you think, but what I think matters too.

Of course, it doesn’t have quite the same theatrical impact, and nobody is likely to raise a glass to celebrate our newfound independence. But it reflects something far more important. We’re developing the capacity to be ourselves while remaining connected to others.

We don’t have to stop caring. We have to develop the capacities of our authentic self so we don’t continue to abandon ourselves.

Want to Develop These Capacities?

Healthy entitlement, agency, and personal authority are among the 16 psychological capacities of the authentic self that help us move beyond self-protective patterns of behavior and become who we are meant to be.

Download my free guide to the 16 Capacities of the Authentic Self to learn more about the capacities we need to develop rather than continuing to struggle to change the behaviors of our adaptive perso

The curious psychology of why some people keep everyone connected while others wait for others to reach out.

One person is utterly exhausted from keeping relationships on life support. The other has no idea there’s even a patient in the hospital.

Look closely at any family tree, friend group, or extended circle of acquaintances, and you will find they are neatly partitioned into two distinct species: The Initiators and The Non-Initiators.

The Initiators are the tireless architects of connection. They organize holiday dinners, orchestrate group chats, track birthdays, and carry the heavy mental load of making sure nobody drifts off into the abyss. The Non-Initiators are the delighted passengers. They love turning up, eating the food, and enjoying the company, provided someone else took care of the logistics.

Both groups believe they are entirely reasonable. Neither can understand why the other makes such a massive, dramatic fuss about something as simple as picking up a phone.

The Exasperated Initiator (And the Fear of Being Forgotten)

Initiators keep the social world spinning on its axis. They are the ones who call to check in, suggest a weekend away, and remember that it has been three months since the extended family last breathed the same air. If there is a gathering happening anywhere on planet Earth, an Initiator started a group chat for it three weeks ago and is currently staring at their phone wondering why three people have left them on “Read.”

Naturally, Initiators have a running internal monologue of grievance:

• “Why am I always the one making the calls?”
• “If I stopped planning Thanksgiving, we’d all end up eating takeout alone in the dark.”
• “We’ve been friends for twenty years, and I’m pretty sure she’s never suggested a single activity.”

The Fear Behind It: Beneath the righteous anger of the Initiator lies a quiet, nagging terror. If I stop doing this, will anyone care? For the Initiator, taking charge isn’t just about organizing logistics; it is an unconscious bid for validation. They worry that if they drop the rope, the relationship vanishes, proving they were the only ones holding it together.

This leads to the classic Initiator ritual: The Silent Experiment.

Fed up, the Initiator announces, usually to a spouse, a pet, or a sympathetic barista, that they are going on a social strike. They are going to stop reaching out, stay completely silent, and see how long it takes for the other person to notice.

It is a fascinating psychological experiment, mostly because the Initiator expects the other person to experience a sudden epiphany of guilt, realize the cosmic imbalance of the relationship, and call in a panic of remorse.

Instead, what actually happens is that weeks pass. Then months. By month two, the Initiator has mentally rewritten the entire history of the friendship, casting themselves as a tragic, unappreciated martyr. By month three, they snap under the pressure, pick up the phone, and call.

The Non-Initiator answers with cheerful, booming enthusiasm: “Oh, it is so good to hear from you! I was just thinking about you!”

Which, of course, makes the Initiator want to throw their phone into a lake.

The Blissfully Unconcerned Non-Initiator (And the Fear of Getting It Wrong)

Non-Initiators operate on an entirely different plane of reality. They love their friends, adore their families, and are genuinely thrilled when someone reaches out. They just don’t experience the biological or psychological urgency to maintain a rigid maintenance schedule.

For a Non-Initiator, relationships come with an automatic, lifetime warranty. Once you establish that you like each other, the friendship continues indefinitely in a state of suspended animation. You can go six months or six years without speaking, and they expect to pick up the sentence right where you left off.

Ask a Non-Initiator why they never call, and you will receive a perfectly innocent, bulletproof excuse: they were busy, they lost track of time, or they assumed you had a million things going on. They also possess an Olympic-level talent for saying, “We really should get together soon!” with absolute sincerity, completely lacking any follow-up plan.

When an Initiator finally confronts them with a breathless, “Why don’t you ever call me?!” the Non-Initiator is genuinely startled. From their vantage point, the relationship was fantastic. They accepted the dinner invite, they laughed at the jokes, and they brought a nice bottle of wine.

What more does this person want? A blood oath?

The Fear Behind It: Non-Initiators often resist reaching out because of a quiet fear of imposition, rejection, or doing it wrong. They worry about bothering a busy person, picking the wrong venue, or triggering a calendar review that requires too much friction. It is much safer, and vastly less stressful, to wait for an expert (the Initiator) to handle the steering wheel.

Family Dynamics and the Extended Acquaintance Trap

This dynamic gets even more hilarious, and dangerous, when you scale it up from close friends to family members and extended acquaintances.

In family groups, the Initiator role is often handed down like an heirloom, usually to the person who proved early on that they could organize a birthday party without a meltdown. Soon, they are managing aunts, uncles, siblings, and second cousins who treat holiday planning like a hotel booking service.

• “Are we doing Christmas at your place this year?”
• “What time should we show up?”
• “Can you make sure Uncle Greg doesn’t sit near the radiator?”

Meanwhile, the Non-Initiator family members treat the event calendar like an incoming weather report: they check it to see if they need an umbrella, show up, eat the turkey, and vanish back into the wild.

When Two of a Kind Collide

What happens when these personalities cross paths in the wild?

• Two Initiators Collide: Their social life turns into a competitive sport. Both have distinct ideas about where to eat, both want to drive, and neither knows how to be a passenger. The friendship survives, but eventually, one accuses the other of being a control freak.
• Two Non-Initiators Collide: The friendship exists entirely in theory. They love each other dearly, but neither has initiated contact since the previous decade. If they accidentally bump into each other at the grocery store, they will spend twenty minutes hugging in the produce aisle, promising to grab coffee next week, and then happily vanish for another three years.
• The Classic Match: The Initiator and the Non-Initiator. This actually forms the most stable relationship on earth—provided both accept their casting. One loves organizing; the other loves being included. They can happily run this machinery for decades.

So, Who Is Responsible for Keeping Us Connected?

The truth is, both groups are driven by their own invisible anxieties. Initiators fear being invisible and forgotten; Non-Initiators fear being a burden or stepping on toes. But they get into trouble when they judge the other person by their own internal playbook.

Maybe the solution isn’t a dramatic breakup or a passive-aggressive social strike.

Initiators might discover that if they dial back the control freak tendencies just a notch, relationships won’t shatter—they’ll just find out who actually cares to lift a finger. And Non-Initiators might realize that picking up the phone to suggest a casual coffee once in a blue moon makes an Initiator feel like they’ve won the lottery.

Of course, if every Initiator on earth truly went on strike tomorrow and every Non-Initiator kept waiting for the phone to ring… society as we know it would likely grind to a halt. Families would stop gathering, dinner parties would cease, and we’d all communicate exclusively via mutual Instagram likes.

Fortunately, the Initiators will eventually get bored of sulking, decide that somebody has to adult around here, and start organizing everyone again.

They’ll just have plenty of juicy complaints while they do it.

Exploring the mystery of our psychospiritual nature and who we are meant to be.

We spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to understand what’s wrong with us. We examine our shortcomings, question our choices, and search for explanations for the behaviors and emotional patterns that make life difficult. Psychology has helped us understand a great deal about why we struggle, but I wonder whether our focus on fixing ourselves has distracted us from a much bigger question: What does it really mean to be human, and how much of our potential have we yet to discover?

It’s a question that’s been on my mind as I work on my new book, Remembering Who You Are Meant to Be. The more I explore our human nature, the more convinced I become that we need to understand ourselves as psychospiritual beings, with an innate nature, a deeper purpose, and extraordinary potential that we have a lifetime to develop.

There’s More to Us Than We Realize

If someone asked you who you are, you’d probably have an answer ready. You’d likely describe your personality, the work you do, the people who matter to you, or the experiences that have shaped your life. But what if they asked you something more meaningful? What gives your life meaning, and what do you believe your purpose is? These questions take us beyond what we do and the roles we play, inviting us to consider something deeper about ourselves, our existence, and who we are meant to be.

Most of us have experienced moments when we’ve sensed there’s more to life than what occupies our everyday attention. You may have felt a profound connection with another person, been deeply moved by the beauty of nature, or experienced an unexpected sense of peace or belonging. Perhaps you’ve questioned the direction of your life, wondered what you’re here to contribute, or felt drawn toward something meaningful that you couldn’t quite explain. These experiences often stay with us because they touch something within us that we don’t fully understand.

They also remind us that there’s more to our human nature than our personalities, thoughts, and emotions. We have an inner life that reaches beyond our immediate needs and circumstances, along with a deep longing for love, connection, meaning, and purpose. Throughout history, spiritual traditions have recognized this dimension of our existence, describing it as our soul, spirit, or divine nature. Yet, despite its importance to our psychospiritual nature, we give it remarkably little attention when trying to understand ourselves. We’ve become far more accustomed to examining our psychological wounds and learning how to heal than exploring the potential we’re here to develop.

We spend years building careers, maintaining relationships, meeting expectations, and working on ourselves, often without stopping to consider what all this activity is leading us toward. We know a great deal about how to manage our lives, but how often do we give ourselves the time and space to explore what makes life meaningful, what we’re here to develop and express, and whether the person we’ve become reflects who we are meant to be?

We Were Born Whole

One of the foundational ideas in my work is that we’re born whole, with an innate nature and the potential to develop into the people we are meant to be. We arrive in the world with natural mental functions, emotional needs, and capacities that are meant to develop through our experiences and relationships.

Think about how naturally we accept this process when we watch a young child develop. We see their curiosity, their growing ability to connect with others, and their excitement as they discover what they can do. We understand that their abilities develop over time and that they need love, security, encouragement, and opportunities to explore their world.

Of course, none of us grow up in an environment that meets all our needs perfectly. As children, we quickly learn what brings approval, what creates conflict, and what we need to do to maintain our relationships with the people we depend on. We begin adapting to our circumstances, often without realizing how much these experiences are influencing our developing sense of self.

Our Self-Protective System plays an important role in this process. It helps us navigate difficult experiences, protect our emotional well-being, and maintain the relationships we depend on. But when adaptation becomes excessive and prolonged, more of our developmental energy gets directed toward creating an identity that will help us feel safe, accepted, and valued.

Over time, without enough security, we develop an adaptive persona, a way of being that reflects what we’ve learned about who we need to be to self-regulate and feel safe. As this persona becomes more established, we can lose touch with aspects of our authentic self, including our natural abilities, emotional needs, desires, and capacities that haven’t had the opportunity to develop or were rejected or shamed during childhood.

I’ve worked with many people who have built successful lives, raised families, developed careers, and done everything they believed they were supposed to do, only to reach a point where they feel something important is missing. They often have difficulty explaining their dissatisfaction because, from the outside, their lives appear perfectly fine. What they’re experiencing deserves our curiosity because that quiet sense of dissatisfaction can be an invitation to explore the parts of themselves that have been waiting for attention.

What Is It Within Us That Wants More?

Most of us have had the experience of feeling drawn toward something without knowing exactly why. You may have wanted to explore a new interest, change the direction of your life, deepen your relationships, or find more meaning in the way you’re living, only to dismiss these feelings because they didn’t seem practical or because you couldn’t see how they fit with the life you’ve already created. Yet, the feeling keeps returning, reminding you that there’s something within you that wants your attention.

I’ve come to understand these longings as expressions of our developmental nature. Just as our bodies have an appetite for food and send us hunger signals when we need nourishment, we have a psychospiritual appetite that reflects our innate need to develop. Our emotional needs seek satisfaction, our natural capacities seek expression, and our spiritual nature draws us toward greater meaning, connection, and purpose. When these needs go unattended, we experience a different kind of hunger, one that’s often harder to recognize because it shows up in our feelings, relationships, and the choices we make.

These developmental hunger pains can take many forms. Sometimes they show up as restlessness, boredom, dissatisfaction, chronic irritability, or a feeling that something is missing, even when life appears to be going well. At other times, we experience them as curiosity, excitement, inspiration, or an unexpected attraction to something we’ve never considered before. We don’t always recognize these feelings as expressions of our need to develop, especially when we’ve become accustomed to putting our own needs and interests aside.

For example, you might find yourself longing for more meaningful conversations because your need for deeper emotional connection isn’t being satisfied. You might feel restless in a career you’ve enjoyed for years because you’re ready to develop abilities that your current role doesn’t allow you to express. Perhaps you keep returning to the idea of writing, painting, teaching, or learning something new without understanding why it matters so much to you. Or you may feel increasingly uncomfortable with the expectations you’ve spent years meeting because you’re beginning to recognize how much of yourself you’ve set aside to please others.

These feelings are worth paying attention to because our need to develop the potential of our authentic self doesn’t disappear when we reach adulthood. The capacities we haven’t yet developed remain part of our potential, and our innate emotional needs continue to seek satisfaction throughout our lives. Like physical hunger, our developmental appetite tells us that something needs nourishment, although we don’t always understand what we’re hungry for.

When we don’t recognize what we’re longing for, we often look for relief in the wrong places. We might pursue another achievement, buy something new, change our surroundings, or look for a different relationship, hoping that the change will bring the satisfaction we’ve been missing. Sometimes changes in our circumstances are necessary, but when our dissatisfaction comes from neglected emotional needs or undeveloped capacities, changing what’s happening around us doesn’t necessarily address what’s happening within us.

Our psychological and spiritual natures are both part of this developmental appetite. Psychologically, we’re driven to satisfy our innate emotional needs and develop the capacities of our authentic self. Spiritually, we’re drawn toward a deeper understanding of our existence, our connection to others, and the meaning and purpose of our lives. These dimensions of our nature are closely connected, and together they influence what we long for, what gives us satisfaction, and how we experience ourselves in the world.

Our purpose doesn’t have to involve a great achievement or an extraordinary contribution to the world. It finds expression through the ways we love, create, learn, contribute, develop our natural gifts, and bring more of our authentic selves into our everyday lives. What matters is the growing connection between who we are, how we’re developing, and the way we choose to live.

When we lose touch with these developmental and spiritual longings, we can spend years feeding the parts of ourselves that help us maintain security and fulfill our responsibilities while neglecting those that are still waiting to develop. We remain busy, productive, and responsible, yet experience an underlying sense of emptiness or dissatisfaction that we can’t quite explain. Learning to recognize our developmental hunger pains helps us become curious about what we’re really longing for, which emotional needs are seeking satisfaction, and what aspects of our authentic self are ready for greater expression.

The Mystery of Who You Are Meant to Be

As we enter the final week of Who You Are Meant to Be Month, we’ve spent time exploring personality, our emotional needs, the adaptive persona, and the authentic self. These are important parts of understanding our development, but they’re also part of a much larger story about our psychospiritual nature and what it means to live a meaningful, fulfilling life.

I find it encouraging to think about how much of ourselves we still have the opportunity to discover, particularly as we grow older. We often become more aware of the time that’s passed and the opportunities we believe we’ve missed, but we can also recognize the capacities we still have to develop and the experiences that can bring greater meaning and satisfaction to our lives. Growing older doesn’t mean that our development is finished or that we have to remain the people we’ve learned to be.

I’d encourage you to spend some time this week thinking about your own developmental appetite and the parts of yourself that deserve more attention. Consider what brings you a sense of aliveness, what you’ve always wanted to explore, and whether the life you’re living reflects what’s most meaningful to you. Pay attention to those feelings of restlessness, curiosity, or longing that keep returning, and become interested in what they’re telling you about your emotional needs and the capacities you have yet to develop.

We’re far more than the personalities we’ve developed or the problems we’ve learned to manage. We’re psychospiritual beings, born whole, with an innate drive to develop and a lifetime of potential to discover and express. Even the parts of ourselves we’ve neglected or set aside remain important to understanding who we are and what our lives are meant to be about.

I find something deeply encouraging about this way of understanding human nature. Instead of seeing ourselves as flawed individuals who must spend our lives trying to fix what’s wrong, we can approach ourselves with curiosity about everything we have yet to discover and develop. Perhaps that’s the real mystery of being human, and why the journey of remembering who we are meant to be is so worthwhile.

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One Final Week to Take Advantage of My October Promotion

As Who You Are Meant to Be Month comes to a close, I hope these conversations have encouraged you to look at yourself a little differently and become more curious about the parts of yourself you have yet to discover.

If something you’ve read this month has stirred that curiosity or awakened a desire to understand yourself more deeply, I hope you’ll take advantage of my special October promotion before it ends. The Striving Styles Personality System offers a way to understand your innate nature, the emotional needs that drive your behavior, and the ways you’ve learned to adapt. It’s a starting point for reconnecting with your Authentic Self and developing more of your potential.

I hope you’ll continue exploring the mystery of who you are meant to be.

The path to becoming who you’re meant to be begins by questioning the stories you’ve accepted as true.

Have you ever reacted to something someone said or did, only to discover later that you’d completely misunderstood their intentions? You were so certain about what their behavior meant that you didn’t consider another explanation. By the time you realized what was actually happening, you’d already experienced the hurt, anger, or rejection that came from your interpretation.

We like to believe we’re responding to what’s happening around us, but we’re often responding to what we’ve made it mean. And that meaning comes from the stories we’ve developed about ourselves, often long before we were old enough to understand what was really happening.

𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗲

As children, we interpret our experiences through our limited understanding of ourselves and the people we depend on. When a parent is critical, disappointed, or emotionally unavailable, we don’t understand all the reasons for their behavior. Instead, we make it about ourselves. We decide we’re not important, we’re too demanding, or we’re simply not good enough.

These early interpretations become beliefs that shape how we experience relationships throughout our lives. If our story is that we’re not important, an unanswered message feels like rejection. If our story is that we’re inadequate, constructive feedback feels like criticism. If we’ve learned that love depends on keeping others happy, someone’s disappointment feels like evidence that we’ve done something wrong.

The situation isn’t necessarily what causes our distress. It’s the meaning our story gives to it.

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆

Our self-protective brain is constantly looking for signs that something threatens our safety, belonging, or worth. When a situation resembles an earlier experience, we automatically interpret it through our old story and react as though that interpretation were the truth.

We become defensive, withdraw, apologize unnecessarily, or try harder to gain approval. Sometimes our reactions create the very problems we’re afraid of experiencing, reinforcing the beliefs that caused them in the first place. We continue relying on our adaptive persona, the self-protective version of ourselves we developed to feel safe and accepted.

𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝗲𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆

Development begins when we learn to separate what happened from what we made it mean. We become capable of recognizing that someone else’s disappointment doesn’t mean we’ve failed, disagreement isn’t necessarily rejection, and another person’s behavior isn’t always about us.

This is how we begin moving beyond the adaptive persona and developing the capacities of our authentic self. Instead of automatically responding from old beliefs, we develop the ability to understand ourselves and others more accurately.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝗽𝘀𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂, 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳: 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗜 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻?

You already know your version of the story. The question is whether you’re ready to discover what else might be true.

If you’re beginning to recognize how your old stories shape your perceptions, reactions, and relationships, therapy or coaching can help you understand where those stories came from and develop beyond them. Through my unique developmental approach, I help people move beyond the self-protective patterns of their adaptive persona and develop the capacities of their authentic self, so they can respond to life as it is rather than through the lens of their past.

𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗱@𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘀𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘀.𝗰𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿.

Most of us have a story we tell ourselves when something happens that leaves us feeling uncertain, exposed, rejected, criticized, or disappointed. Someone doesn’t answer a message, your boss suddenly wants a meeting, a friend seems distant, your partner is quiet, or you make a mistake at work. Before we know what any of it means, our brain starts filling in the blanks, and for many people the story quickly becomes some version of, “I did something wrong,” “I made them mad,” or “I should have handled that better.” Underneath those thoughts is often an older and more deeply rooted belief that says, “I’m not good enough.”

That belief can take many forms. Maybe it’s not smart enough, successful enough, lovable enough, capable enough, attractive enough, or interesting enough. Whatever form it takes, the story often begins early, when we’re trying to make sense of what’s happening in relationships with the people we depend on most.

Where the Story Begins

As children, we don’t have the developmental capacity to understand the complexity of our parents’ inner lives. We don’t know that a parent may be stressed because of work, unhappy because of their marriage, depressed because of their own history, or overwhelmed by circumstances that have nothing to do with us. We only know how they are behaving toward us, and when that behavior includes criticism, blame, withdrawal, shaming, or emotional unpredictability, we tend to make sense of it in a very personal way.

If a parent is upset, we assume we caused it. If they are disappointed, we believe we’ve failed. If they’re stressed and tell us we’re too demanding, too sensitive, too difficult, too selfish, or too much, we don’t have the ability to step back and question whether the problem belongs to them. Instead, we start adapting.

We become more careful about what we say, more attentive to their moods, more helpful, more agreeable, more successful, or less demanding. Over time, we come to believe that we must be what others need us to be to feel safe and connected. Over time, this becomes our primary way of self-regulation.

How the Self-Protective Brain Takes Over

Once the brain sees our primary caregivers as unsafe, our self-protective system becomes more vigilant. We start scanning to see how others are feeling before thinking about our own feelings. We think about how others want us to act and behave before speaking or acting. We constantly notice tone, expression, silence, withdrawal, irritation, disappointment, and subtle shifts in behavior because we’ve learned those cues may signal danger to the relationship.

Without realizing it, we begin to organize ourselves around preventing that danger. We may become highly responsible because being dependable brings approval. We may become pleasing because conflict feels risky. We may become accomplished because success brings recognition. We may become independent because relying on others feels unsafe. We may become emotionally contained because vulnerability feels too exposing.

The specific pattern differs from person to person, but the process is the same. We develop an adaptive persona that helps us protect ourselves and get our needs met. The more successful that persona becomes, the more we rely on it, and eventually we stop experiencing it as a strategy. It simply feels like who we are.

When Everything Starts to Feel Personal

One of the consequences of this developmental delay is that we continue to experience other people through the lens of ourselves. Instead of seeing another person as separate from us, with their own thoughts, moods, history, needs, and reactions, we make their behavior mean something about us.

If a friend becomes distant, we may immediately wonder what we did wrong. If a partner is quiet, we may feel compelled to fix the mood. If someone disagrees with us, we may experience it as rejection rather than difference. If another person succeeds, we may feel diminished rather than simply able to recognize their accomplishment.

This kind of self-referral can become so automatic that we don’t notice it happening. We assume that because someone else’s reaction affects us, it must also be about us.

From a developmental perspective, this means our relationship system is closed. We haven’t fully developed the ability to self-regulate in the face of someone else’s opinions, behavior, and emotions without making it about us.

Why This Can Look Narcissistic

The adaptive behaviors that come out of our story resemble narcissistic behavior, although the underlying intention is different.  Instead of staying curious about what’s happening for the other person, we pull the experience back into our own story. Someone tells us about an achievement and, rather than simply sharing their excitement, we feel diminished and start comparing ourselves. Someone is disappointed because we’ve said no, and suddenly we’re telling ourselves we’re selfish, so we change our mind to relieve our own discomfort. We’re excluded from something and immediately create a story that we’re not liked, not good enough, or somehow less important, which then drives us to try harder to fit in. In each case, what belongs to the other person gets filtered through our story.

That’s the common thread. Self-referral keeps us trapped inside our own story because we don’t ask, “What’s going on with them?” and instead ask, “What does this mean about me?” The other person’s experience gets lost as our self-protective brain rushes to interpret everything through the lens of inadequacy, rejection, or blame.

Development allows us to move beyond that. We can let someone else’s success belong to them without experiencing it as evidence of our failure. We can tolerate another person’s disappointment without immediately deciding we’ve done something wrong. We can hear disagreement without experiencing it as rejection, and we can be left out without automatically turning exclusion into proof that we’re unworthy.

That’s what begins to open the relationship system and allow the authentic self to emerge. We become better able to recognize where the other person ends and where we begin, giving both people more room to exist as separate, whole individuals.

The Cost of the “Not Good Enough” Story

The real cost of the “not good enough” story isn’t simply insecurity. It’s that we begin organizing our lives around disproving it.

We work harder because success makes us feel more secure. We become indispensable because being needed reassures us. We take care of everyone because usefulness feels safer than simply being ourselves. We try to be attractive, accomplished, competent, agreeable, interesting, or impressive because each of those qualities seems to offer some temporary evidence that we’re okay.

The problem is that the reassurance never lasts for very long. If the original belief remains intact, every new situation becomes another opportunity to test whether we’re enough. Approval feels good, but we need more of it. Achievement feels satisfying, but only until the next comparison or disappointment. Being needed feels reassuring, but only while people continue to need us.

Our authentic self remains undeveloped because the story and beliefs underneath have never really changed.I think of this as a developmental delay because healthy development requires us to become increasingly capable of differentiating ourselves from other people. We need to learn that someone else can be unhappy without it being our fault, that another person’s disappointment does not automatically mean we have failed, and that someone else’s success does not diminish our own value. We also need to develop the capacity to tolerate uncertainty rather than immediately using an old story to explain what we do not yet understand.

When that development is delayed, we continue to manage the external world in much the same way we did when we were younger. We watch, anticipate, adapt, rescue, apologize, appease, defend, or try harder because these strategies once helped us feel safer. The behavior may look highly responsible or even admirable from the outside, but the underlying motivation remains connected to the fear that something bad will happen if we do not manage the situation correctly.

This is where the “not good enough” story can become particularly powerful. If we believe that our safety, belonging, approval, or connection depends on being better, doing more, or not making mistakes, we continue strengthening the very behaviors that keep the story alive. Instead of developing beyond the old pattern, we become increasingly skilled at functioning within it.

How This Makes Us Forget Who We Are Meant to Be

When so much of our attention is focused on protecting our worth, there’s very little room left for development. We’re too busy monitoring relationships, managing impressions, avoiding rejection, and maintaining the adaptive persona to notice what else in us wants to grow.

We may know how to achieve, but not how to rest. We know how to please, but not how to assert ourselves. We know how to care for others, but not how to receive. We know how to stay in control, but not how to tolerate uncertainty. We become highly developed in the capacities that protect us and less developed in the capacities that belong to the authentic self.

That’s why the “not good enough” story can keep us from becoming who we are meant to be. It keeps us in a developmental loop where we spend so much energy answering the question, “Am I okay?” that we never get far enough to ask, “Who am I meant to be?”

Remembering Who You Are Meant to Be

It’s easy to believe that our story feels true because it is wired into our brain and activates automatically. But that doesn’t make it the truth about who we are. It was shaped in relationships where we didn’t yet have the developmental capacity to understand what belonged to us and what belonged to someone else.

As adults, we can begin to see that distinction more clearly. We can notice when we’re assuming responsibility for someone else’s feelings, when we’re making comparison into a judgment about our worth, or when we’re reacting to criticism as though it confirms something fundamentally wrong with us.

Each time we recognize the old story instead of automatically living from it, we loosen the adaptive persona’s grip and redirect our energy into developing the capacities of the authentic self. This includes responding from who we are now, not from who we had to become to feel safe, accepted, or good enough.

That’s where remembering who you are meant to be begins.

Not by proving your worth, fixing yourself, or becoming someone new, but by recognizing that the adaptive persona was never meant to run your life forever. It helped you survive what you once needed to survive. Development asks you to stop living from your self-protective system and become you were always meant to be.

There’s a particular kind of loneliness that comes with being a successful woman. People see what you’ve accomplished, how you carry yourself, the life you’ve created, your confidence, your appearance, your relationships, and the attention you receive. They see the outside and assume they know the woman.

But what happens when another woman doesn’t just notice your success, but she starts comparing herself with it, decides she comes up short, and blames you for making her feel that way?

You feel it before you understand it. There’s less warmth, less curiosity, and a little more edge. Something you’re proud of gets minimized. Attention gets redirected away from you. A compliment doesn’t quite feel like a compliment. You’re excluded from something you assumed you’d be part of. Before long, you realize you’re not simply being seen as another woman. You’ve become someone against whom another woman is measuring herself.

And when envy enters a relationship, it doesn’t usually announce itself as envy. It shows up in behavior.

Here are 10 ways women behave when they’re reacting to envy without recognizing it. It’s primitive and self-protective, and it’s deeply destructive to the woman on the receiving end who has done nothing more than show up as herself: successful, intelligent, attractive, happy in her relationship, or comfortable with who she is.

1. She Minimizes What You’ve Accomplished

Have you ever shared something you were proud of, and instead of genuine interest, you get silence, a quick change of subject, or a response that somehow takes the accomplishment away from you? You share that you’ve just been promoted into a leadership role, and another woman responds, “You must have known someone to get promoted that quickly,” despite the years you’ve spent working toward your career goals.

Suddenly, your discipline is luck, your competence is connections, and your hard work gets explained away. What hurts isn’t simply the comment. It’s the implication that the achievement isn’t really yours and that someone or something else must have made it happen for you.

2. She Redirects Attention Away From You

Have you ever started talking about something important to you and watched another woman immediately take over the conversation? You mention something happening at work, and before anyone responds, she jumps in with her own story. Suddenly everyone is animated and asking her questions while what you were saying disappears. Nobody circles back. You’re still sitting there, but somehow you’ve gone from participant to audience.

The same thing happens with ideas and contributions. You make a suggestion, and it goes nowhere. Someone else raises essentially the same idea later, and suddenly it’s brilliant. You offer to help, and no one acknowledges it, while another woman makes a similar offer and gets praised for her generosity. It isn’t simply that the attention moved on. It’s the repeated experience of becoming invisible while you’re still sitting right there.

3. She Devalues What She Once Admired

This is one of the most confusing shifts in a relationship. A woman who once openly admired things about you gradually becomes one of your biggest critics, both to you and to other people. At first, she tells you how much she admires your confidence, your career, your style, your relationship, or the life you’ve built. Later, those same qualities become evidence of something wrong with you.

Speak confidently, and suddenly you’re bragging. Your intelligence becomes showing off, your standards become demanding, and your attractiveness becomes vanity. Your success came too easily, your marriage probably isn’t as good as it looks, and whatever you’ve accomplished gets diminished once she finishes explaining it. How do you feel close to someone who keeps turning what she once admired about you into evidence against you?

4. She Starts Looking for What’s Wrong With You

When another woman is competing with you because she envies you, she starts looking for the flaw that will bring you back down to size. She seems to have far more energy for what’s going wrong in your life than for what’s going right. She leans into your problems in a way she never leans into your good news. A setback gets more attention than an accomplishment, and vulnerability seems to make her noticeably more comfortable with you.

Sometimes you realize that the struggling version of you is easier for her to like than the successful one. That’s a painful realization because friendship is supposed to hold both. You want someone who cares when you’re hurting and is genuinely happy when you’re thriving.

5. She Excludes You

Have you ever been sitting right there and still felt excluded?

You’re sitting at the same table, and she turns her body toward the person on her other side, effectively closing you out of the conversation. Or you run into her at a meeting and hear her talking about a dinner party she hosted where everyone else seems to have been invited except you. A woman who is warm and engaged with you privately becomes cooler when other women are around. Conversations change when you walk into the room, or you find yourself physically included but relationally left on the outside.

The message is subtle but unmistakable: you’re welcome enough to be present, but not enough to fully belong.

6. She Assigns Motives to You That You Don’t Recognize

Projection is one of the most confusing parts of being envied because suddenly you’re being told what you think, feel, and intend. You’re accused of competing when you weren’t competing. Your confidence is interpreted as arrogance, your boundaries become rejection, and your enjoyment of being noticed becomes evidence that you always need to be the center of attention.

You try to explain yourself because being misunderstood feels awful, but the explanation rarely helps once a story has already been created about you. Defending yourself becomes further evidence that you’re defensive, clarifying what you meant becomes controlling the narrative, and standing up for yourself becomes aggression. Eventually, you realize the other woman isn’t responding to who you actually are. She’s responding to the version of you she has created.

7. She Talks About You Instead of Talking to You

Gossip gives envy a social life without requiring the vulnerability of a direct conversation. Instead of asking you what you meant, she tells someone else what she thinks you meant. Instead of checking whether her interpretation is accurate, she shares it. Small interactions get retold with a particular spin, and other women become part of a story about you before they’ve had enough experience with you to form their own opinion.

This is how one woman’s projection becomes a group narrative. Suddenly, women who barely know you have decided you’re intimidating, arrogant, difficult, self-centered, controlling, or whatever label has taken hold. They feel as though they know you because they’ve heard so much about you, even though they’ve never actually taken the time to know you themselves. How do you repair a relationship when everyone has been talking about you and no one has actually talked to you?

8. She Competes With You When You Weren’t Competing

One of the strangest experiences is discovering that you’ve been entered into a competition you didn’t know existed. You share something, and she needs to top it. You receive recognition, and she immediately introduces her own accomplishment. You mention something positive in your relationship, career, or life, and she finds a way to establish that hers is equal or better.

You weren’t keeping score, but suddenly you realize someone else was. This is where ordinary conversation starts feeling exhausting. Instead of two women sharing their lives, there’s a constant undercurrent of comparison. The unspoken question becomes who is more successful, attractive, interesting, accomplished, or admired. You stop feeling like you’re in a relationship and realize you’ve been in a competition you didn’t even know existed.

9. She Leans In When You’re Struggling

This one is particularly confusing because, on the surface, it looks like caring. Something goes wrong in your life and suddenly she becomes more engaged. She asks more questions, offers more advice, and seems warmer and more comfortable with you. For once, she gets to be the successful, helpful, or knowledgeable one in the relationship.

There’s nothing wrong with a friend caring about your difficulties, of course. The difference becomes clear when you compare her response to your pain with her response to your joy.

10. She Tries to Put You in Your Place

Sometimes envy becomes an ongoing need to correct, challenge, tease, diminish, or subtly humble you. There’s the unnecessary correction in front of other people, the joke with a little sting in it, the backhanded compliment, or the comment designed to remind everyone that you’re not quite as impressive as you seem.

Individually, these moments are easy to explain away. Collectively, they tell a different story. The constant need to bring you down a notch isn’t intimacy or friendly teasing. It’s competition expressed through devaluation, with your value being reduced so she can feel better about her own

The Problem Begins When You Start Changing Yourself

After enough experiences like these, something happens to you. You start anticipating other women’s reactions before they even occur. You talk less about what’s going well. You minimize your accomplishments before anyone else gets the chance. You become careful about mentioning money, travel, recognition, relationships, opportunities, your appearance, or anything else that seems to activate comparison.

You reassure people that your life isn’t perfect. You make sure they know you struggle too. You monitor how much attention you’re getting and whether you’re taking up too much space. This is when envy starts costing you far more than a friendship because you begin editing yourself in anticipation of how other women will react to you.

Being Impressive Starts Feeling Safer Than Being Intimate

The irony is that the more other women judge what you’ve developed and achieved as your authentic self, the more tempting it becomes to retreat into an adaptive persona that feels safer. Instead of showing up fully, you become a better audience. You listen more, share less, and reveal only the parts of yourself that seem unlikely to trigger comparison.

You start editing yourself before anyone else gets the chance. You find things to devalue about yourself so you don’t seem too confident. You monitor anything that might sound boastful, minimize what’s going well, and sometimes even dress down so you don’t attract the kind of attention that has brought envy before. Without realizing it, you begin managing yourself around other women instead of simply being yourself with them.

Then people look at you and see a woman who seems self-contained and doesn’t appear to need much from anyone. What they don’t see is how much of you has gone underground. Underneath, you’re wondering whether there are women who actually want to know you without comparing themselves with you, competing with you, judging you, or turning you into a symbol of everything they believe they don’t have.

Over time, you realize there are only a few places where you don’t have to dumb yourself down, soften your confidence, minimize your accomplishments, or make yourself less visible. You are fully yourself when you’re alone and with the select few who don’t feel threatened by who you are. Those are the relationships where intimacy becomes possible because you no longer have to choose between being known and being accepted.

Being Watched Isn’t the Same as Being Known

Successful women are often watched closely. People notice what you wear, what you achieve, where you go, who you know, what your relationship looks like, how you age, what you buy, and whether your life continues to match the picture they have of you.

But attention isn’t intimacy. Knowing someone requires curiosity. It means wanting to understand who she is beyond what she represents to you. It means hearing about her success without immediately comparing it with your own life, and hearing about her struggles without feeling relieved that she isn’t so fortunate after all.

The woman who envies you is relating to you through comparison rather than curiosity. She isn’t really asking, “Who are you?” She’s asking, “What does your life say about mine?” There is no place for you in this relationship as there is only self-referral.

Time to Stop Apologizing

There comes a point when you realize that making yourself smaller hasn’t protected you anyway. You can dress down, soften your opinions, minimize what you’ve achieved, avoid talking about the things you’re proud of, and make sure everyone understands that your life isn’t perfect. Someone who needs to find fault with you will still find it. At some point, you have to ask yourself why you keep abandoning parts of yourself to make someone else more comfortable.

It’s time to stop pretending you aren’t proud of what you’ve worked for and hiding what’s going well because someone else feels uncomfortable. You can stay open to honest feedback because self-awareness still matters without automatically assuming that another woman’s reaction means you’ve done something wrong. Instead, you become much more discerning about whose opinions you allow to shape the way you see yourself

You Still Want Other Women in Your Life

Being hurt by women doesn’t stop you from wanting relationships with women. If anything, it makes you clearer about the kind of relationships you want.

You want women who are curious about you instead of competitive with you. You want to share good news without calculating how much enthusiasm is safe. You want to be attractive without apologizing for being noticed, successful without minimizing what you’ve accomplished, confident without being accused of arrogance, and vulnerable without wondering whether someone is secretly relieved to discover that your life isn’t perfect.

You want to be able to celebrate another woman without making her success mean something about you, and you want the same generosity in return. Isn’t that what friendship between women is supposed to feel like?

Become the Woman You Are Meant to Be

Success doesn’t remove the need to be known. If anything, it makes the difference between being admired and being understood much clearer. Being envied stops feeling flattering when it shows up as comparison, competition, minimizing, devaluation, exclusion, projection, gossip, and an ongoing search for something that proves you aren’t as fortunate as you appear. What looks like attention from the outside becomes profoundly lonely when no one seems interested in knowing the woman underneath it.

The answer isn’t to retreat into your adaptive self by pretending to be less successful, less attractive, less confident, less visible, or less alive. It’s to remain connected to your authentic self and stop adjusting who you are around women who need you to become smaller before they can feel comfortable beside you.

If you’re a successful woman who has worked hard to become more authentically yourself and you’re envied for it, you still want what every woman wants in her relational world: to be known without being reduced, celebrated without being competed with, and loved without having to make yourself smaller first.

If you took away the roles you play, the expectations you meet, and the version of you that other people have come to rely on, how much of yourself would you still recognize?

That question gives me pause because most of us have spent years becoming someone. Maybe you’re the competent one, the successful one, the dependable one, the peacemaker, the person who keeps everyone happy, or the one who always seems to have it together. You’ve probably gotten pretty good at being that person, and chances are other people have come to expect it from you.

But somewhere underneath all of that, you may also know there’s more to you than the persona you’ve become so good at presenting.

Who are you when you’re not being who everyone else needs or expects you to be?

That’s the question behind the Become Who You Are Meant to Be Month.

I created this month because we spend an enormous amount of time managing our lives and surprisingly little time thinking about our own development. We work, take care of people, deal with problems, fulfill family and career responsibilities, and keep driving ourselves beyond exhaustion.

It’s hard to stop and realize that have become so good at being what others expect us to be that we have lost sight of the person we are meant to be.

So What Does It Actually Mean?

Becoming who you are meant to be doesn’t require moving to an ashram, quitting your job, finding your one true purpose, or completely reinventing yourself.

It means:

1. Getting curious about yourself again. Not the roles you play, but who you are underneath them.
2. Knowing what drives you. Your predominant need tells you a lot about what gives you energy and when you’re moving away from yourself.
3. Noticing where your energy is going. Are you developing your authentic self or putting more effort into maintaining your adaptive persona?
4. Developing capacities you haven’t fully used yet. There’s more available to you than the strengths you already know how to rely on.
5. Choosing development throughout your life. You’re not finished your development just because others see you as successful or reached a certain age.

And What Doesn’t It Mean?

It doesn’t mean:

1. Finding a secret destiny you somehow missed. There isn’t one correct life you were supposed to figure out.
2. Becoming someone completely different. Development is about becoming more of yourself, not somebody else.
3. Fixing everything that’s “wrong” with you. You’re developing potential, not repairing a defective product.
4. Adding another achievement to your list. You can be incredibly successful and still be living mostly from your adaptive persona.
5. Waiting for your authentic self to magically unfold. Potential needs your participation. You have to develop it.

That last one is most important.

Two Agendas, One Path to Become Who You Are Meant to Be

The authentic self is a fully formed person hiding inside us, waiting for the right moment to appear.

In the Striving Styles Personality System, our self-actualizing system directs energy toward the development of the authentic self, while our self-protective system directs energy toward the adaptive persona we created to cope, belong, succeed, and feel safe.

Both have their own agenda. The interesting question is which one has been getting most of your energy.

You can spend years making the adaptive persona stronger. You can get even better at being responsible, pleasing, accomplished, independent, needed, impressive, or in control. Other people may even congratulate you for it while something inside you becomes increasingly dissatisfied.

Or you can listen to that little nudge that says, There’s more to me than this.

I think that nudge matters. It’s the seed within our authentic self calling us toward development, reminding us that there are still capacities to develop, experiences to have, and parts of ourselves to bring into our lives.

What Are You Waiting For?

One of the easiest things to do is tell ourselves we’ll pay attention to our own development later. When work settles down. When the kids need us less. When the relationship is better. When we retire. When we have more time, more energy, more money, or fewer things demanding our attention.

The problem is that life rarely clears the calendar and announces that it’s finally time to become who you are meant to be.

We can’t rely on magical thinking either. Knowing there’s more to us doesn’t develop it. Reading about our personality doesn’t develop it. Understanding why we behave the way we do doesn’t automatically change how we live.

At some point, we have to participate.

We have to notice when we’re strengthening the same old persona instead of developing something new. We have to listen when our predominant need tells us something is off. We have to take the capacities of our authentic self out of the realm of possibility and start using them in our actual lives.

There may never be a perfect time to become who you are meant to be. There is only the point at which you decide to stop waiting and start developing.