Because we’re so trained to shape-shift into whatever version of us will be most likable, our relationships often feel imbalanced and draining. Many women feel like they have to abandon themselves in relationships, to go “out” to the other and join them where they are, with the end goal (conscious or otherwise) of giving them a positive experience, and favorable perception of us. Relating requires being “on,” and it’s not until we are alone again, with no one else’s feelings to attend to, that we can “come home” and re-inhabit ourselves.

Instinctive Disappearance

This disappearance into the other’s experience happens so instinctively and instantaneously that it’s hard to see unfolding, much less prevent. It’s as if we leave the scene, switch on auto-pilot and assume the wanted character before we even know it, as if we’ve been sedated with a what-do-you-need-from-me-chloroform, only to wake up later, back inside ourselves, physically and metaphorically, where we remember (and feel) our own experience, what we think, want, and need.

We’ve been conditioned to be selfless, valued, and admired for our ability to disappear and take care of other people’s experience. As a result of this training, we’ve learned that the best way to take care of ourselves is to abandon ourselves and become what’s likable—to relate from a place of absence, with our sense of self-determined by other people’s perception of us.

To show up and stand in our own shoes, to stay connected to ourselves and simultaneously in relationship, can feel like an aggression, as if our separate experience, which may be different or undesirable, is something we’re doing to the other—something that, if we were better behaved, we could choose not to do. Staying rooted in our own truth seems self-centered and withholding; either we evacuate ourselves and merge with the other person, or we stay home with ourselves, which feels “selfish.”

Furthermore, because we’ve learned that taking care of others requires being selfless, the sheer act of being embodied and existing as a self in the interaction, a self with her own wants and needs, can feel like we’re saying we don’t care about the other. It’s as if we’re abandoning the other by staying home with ourselves. Having a self feels inherently un-loving, the opposite of the selflessness to which we aspire.

Fear of Judgment and Rejection

But perhaps, at the deepest level, what compels us to abandon ourselves in relationship is the fear of being judged and, ultimately, rejected. If we take our eye off the other’s experience, let down our guard, and speak from our own experience without managing the results, we risk being unwanted and unloved. We’re vulnerable to potential abandonment from the other. The threat of being rejected and unlovable then keeps us dancing the dance of our own abandonment.

We didn’t learn these habits overnight, and we won’t rid ourselves of them overnight. It’s a practice, daily, hourly, moment to moment. Learning to relate to others while staying connected to ourselves, to be with another and ourselves simultaneously is a process, and, like most, one of three steps forward, one step back. We feel ourselves fully present and embodied in one interaction, and then in the next, will have slipped into the old pattern—disappearing into the other and making the interaction go well, only to remember ourselves when it’s over. In the beginning, we might not realize this until we wake up after the interaction has concluded. We might berate ourselves for “doing it again” with the assumption that we had a choice and chose to disappear. But, in fact, we don’t choose this; such relational patterns are deep in our conditioning, hard-wired into us; they link to our drive for survival, and take time, effort, and intention to unravel and uproot.

Connecting With Ourself

Over time, the periods between our disappearances get longer, and our ability to stay gone gets shorter. With more awareness and practice, we start waking up in the middle of conversations and realizing that we’ve gone away. An awareness of our own disappearance begins to dawn, and a part of us remains present and conscious of our own behavior. Eventually, we stop abandoning ourselves altogether, and both the drive and willingness to evacuate and become what’s wanted disappear. “Safe” is then linked to staying connected with our own experience—as opposed to joining with the other’s. What previously felt counterintuitive and unthinkable becomes intuitive and instinctive and, in fact, nonnegotiable.

In part 3 of this What do you want? series, I’ll offer some practices that encourage this relational shift and build our ability to stay embodied and in touch with our own experience while, at the same time, attending and connecting in relationship—ultimately, how to be in relationship without abandoning ourselves.

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As a result, we get really good at focusing on other people, and giving others a positive experience. In short, being pleasing. We decide (without knowing we’re deciding) that being pleasing (likable) is the most important thing we can be and do, and thus begins our lifelong pursuit of likability. 

It’s not our fault.  Being liked is all about safety and survival, which according to psychologist Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, is our primary drive, just above food and water. To be liked is to get to stay with the herd, and thus survive. Simultaneously, being liked provides belonging and self-esteem, which we also need. But as long as survival relies on being liked, it makes sense to pursue likability, whatever the cost. 

Much has changed for women in these last decades, but our relentless pursuit of likability continues to run as a background program behind everything we do and say. Social media tells us, “You be you,” “Do you,” but what it leaves out is, “Do you—as long as you’re still likable!” 

In the thick of the pandemic, my friend Ali met a colleague in town for the day. When he greeted her, despite coming straight from the airport, he wasn’t wearing a mask. Instinctively, Ali removed her own mask, so as not to “make him feel dangerous.” She wanted to ensure that he would enjoy his time with her, and ultimately, like her. Ali then lived with fear and self-recrimination for the following week, not knowing if she had made herself (and her family) sick. Just last week, a woman told me that she didn’t ask the flight attendant for a blanket because she didn’t want to be a “bother.” Once again, she wanted the flight attendant, whom presumably she would never see again, to like her. In a particularly poignant example, a dear friend’s nineteen-year-old daughter was date-raped this semester. She didn’t report the incident because she didn’t “want to be seen as a Debbie Downer,” and consequently disliked. She chose to stay likable and suffer in silence. Yes, we’ve come a long way as women, but we still abandon ourselves every day in small and profound ways, and still believe that safety and likability are a package deal. 

It’s remarkable: we’re compelled to be liked, even when we don’t know or don’t like the people we’re trying so hard to get to like us, and even when being pleasing comes at the cost of our own wants and needs and basic well-being. Without knowing it, we function from inside a likability cage, living off the fumes of being well perceived while still expecting ourselves to create bold and authentic lives.

As women, we have a profound capacity for empathy and kindness, and these natural aspects should be celebrated. But we need to—also—include the parts of ourselves that might not be so likable or well received—so easy to enjoy. Ultimately, we need to welcome and be able to express the whole of us—the full miracle and catastrophe that we actually are.   

We might not realize that we’re living inside the likability cage until we start to feel the exhaustion and dissatisfaction that results from relentlessly pursuing likability. Constantly managing ourselves; sweetening, distorting, and apologizing for our truth so as not to be labeled and dismissed, drains and stymies our fundamental energy: mental, emotional, physical, and sexual. It leaves us disconnected from our authentic self, and therefore from our primary vitality. It leaves us disconnected from our authentic self, and therefore from our primary vitality, which can only arise from our truth. We end up in a suspicious and adversarial relationship with ourselves, vigilantly monitoring, managing, and controlling what we want and need so as to make it work for other people. Still believing that the best way to take care of ourselves is to abandon ourselves.   

At the same time, we imagine that someone or something else must open the door to this likability cage, to let us out so we can live as our authentic selves and not just our likable selves. What we don’t realize however, is that the door to the likability cage opens from the inside.   

Like every change process, liberating yourself starts with baby steps: respectfully sending the food back that you didn’t order, saying (out loud) that you’re not okay (when you’re not okay), admitting that you don’t want what you should want. Shifting the question you’re asking, from What do they want and need from me?—to—What do I want and need from me?  And furthermore, from What do they think of me—to—What do I think of me? 

In truth, we’re frightened of the risks that come with not being so likable—with good reason. We don’t want to be labeled selfish, difficult, demanding, controlling, bossy, hysterical, needy, high-maintenance, angry, and all the rest of the judgments we encounter when we show up authentically. We don’t want to be dismissed and rejected. And yet, when we start experiencing the mountain-like strength and immeasurable self-confidence and clarity that come with choosing authenticity over likability, we realize that it’s worth the risk.   

When your self-esteem no longer depends on being liked, and your truth is not a threat to your internal safety, then your relationship with yourself can heal—you can join your own team, get interested in your own experience, and welcome all of yourself to the table. This is real safety. 

Give it a go. See what it’s like to shift your goal from being liked to being real. Remember, baby steps; you didn’t choose likability as your North Star overnight, and you won’t give it up overnight. That said, it’s important to celebrate when you tell the truth and don’t apologize for it. Each time you show up authentically, no matter the contents of the truth you tell, it’s always a big deal. It may feel scary at first and for some time, but it gets easier and (spoiler alert) it gets great. Eventually, telling your truth, without managing everyone else’s experience of it, becomes empowering and self-loving, like coming home to yourself after a long journey away. Experiment for yourself—see what it’s like to open the door to the likability cage and step out. Ask yourself, your own still small voice, how you want to live (as the poet Mary Oliver wrote) this one wild and precious life.    

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