There was a long season of my life where I walked through the world slightly off balance. I was constantly scanning faces, conversations, and social cues, trying to figure out how to fit in. At the time, I did not have the language for what was happening inside me, but I lived with a quiet confusion about who I needed to be in order to be liked.
That confusion shaped how I spoke, how I listened, and how I showed up in relationships. I was rarely fully present, because part of me was always busy adjusting, editing, and managing myself. I was watching the room instead of inhabiting my own body. I was responding rather than choosing.
At the core of this confusion was a powerful belief I did not even realise I was carrying. Belonging had to be earned. I did not experience myself as someone who naturally deserved connection. Instead, connection felt conditional. If I could be agreeable enough, interesting enough, helpful enough, or non‑threatening enough, then maybe I would be chosen. Maybe I would be kept. Maybe I would finally feel adopted into the lives of others.
Looking back now, I can see that my need to be liked was not superficial or vain. It was rooted in something much deeper. It came from a longing to belong and a fear that who I was, as I was, might not be enough. I was not trying to impress people so much as trying to protect myself from rejection.
When you carry a fear of not being good enough, you learn early how to adapt. I became skilled at reading rooms. I learned how to sense what was wanted from me and offer that version of myself. I could be light when lightness was rewarded, serious when seriousness earned respect, accommodating when harmony felt safer than honesty.
On the outside, this looked like social ease. On the inside, it felt like constant vigilance.
The cost of this adaptation was subtle but significant. The more I shaped myself around others’ expectations, the less I trusted my own internal compass. My preferences blurred. My opinions softened. My needs became negotiable. I was not lying exactly, but I was not telling the full truth either. I was presenting a carefully edited version of myself and hoping it would be acceptable.
What I did not realise at the time was that this strategy, while understandable, was keeping me from real connection. Being liked for a version of myself that was not fully real never translated into feeling truly known. Even when people responded positively to me, there was an underlying anxiety beneath it all. If they knew the rest of me, would they still stay?
That fear followed me into many areas of my life. In friendships, I overextended. In work, I overperformed. In conversations, I second‑guessed myself. I measured my worth through other people’s reactions. Approval felt regulating. Disapproval felt destabilising. I was outsourcing my sense of safety to the external world.
Eventually, this way of being became exhausting.
Holding myself together through constant self‑monitoring took energy I did not know how to replenish. I felt disconnected not only from others, but from myself. There was a growing grief I could not yet name. A grief for the parts of me that stayed hidden, waiting quietly for permission to exist.
The shift did not happen all at once. It began quietly, with moments where the performance cracked. Times when I was too tired to manage, too overwhelmed to adapt, or too honest to keep editing myself. In those moments, something unexpected happened. Instead of rejection, I sometimes received understanding. Instead of being abandoned, I was met.
These moments were deeply uncomfortable. Vulnerability did not feel brave at first. It felt risky. Letting people see my uncertainty, my needs, or my imperfections activated the very fear I had spent years trying to avoid. But each time I stayed present instead of retreating, something inside me softened.
I began to learn that vulnerability was not about oversharing or exposing everything to everyone. It was about allowing myself to be real in appropriate, grounded ways. It was about telling the truth of my experience without trying to manage how it landed. It was about trusting that my inner world had legitimacy.
As I practised this, my relationships began to change. Some connections deepened. Some fell away. That was painful, but it was also clarifying. I started to see the difference between being liked and being connected. Being liked often depended on who I could be for someone else. Being connected required me to be myself.
Perhaps the most important lesson I learned was this. Belonging does not come from being adopted by others. It comes from adopting yourself first.
When I began to treat my own feelings, needs, and limits as worthy of care, I stopped chasing external validation with the same urgency. I was not cured of fear, but I was no longer governed by it. I began to build an internal sense of safety rather than constantly reaching for it outside myself.
Being myself did not make life easier in every way. It made it more honest.
I learned to tolerate the discomfort of not being everyone’s preference. I learned that disagreement does not equal abandonment. I learned that authenticity attracts resonance, not universality. And that not everyone is meant to come with you when you stop performing.
Over time, the question I carried inside me shifted. Instead of asking, “How do I need to be to be liked?” I began asking, “How do I want to show up here?” That question changed everything. It brought me back into relationship with myself. It gave me agency. It made my choices feel aligned rather than reactive.
Today, when I notice the old impulse to adapt or self‑edit, I do not shame it. I recognise it as a part of me that once needed protection. I can acknowledge it with kindness and then choose something different. I can pause, check in, and choose presence over performance.
If you recognise yourself in this story, if you find yourself confused about fitting in, craving acceptance, or fearing that you are not enough, I want you to know this. There is nothing wrong with you. Your longing makes sense. Your strategies were intelligent responses to earlier needs.
And there is another way forward.
One that does not require you to disappear in order to belong. One that does not ask you to abandon yourself for connection. One that invites you to be seen gradually, imperfectly, and honestly.
Vulnerability, practised gently and wisely, becomes a bridge back to yourself.
You do not have to become someone new to be worthy of connection.
You become yourself.
A Gentle Invitation
If you’re reading this and something inside you feels familiar, I want you to know you don’t have to work through these patterns on your own.
There is a space I’ve created called The Tapping Tribe, and it exists for moments exactly like this. A place where you can arrive as you are, without needing to explain yourself or hold everything together. A place to slow down, soften the edges, and gently explore the patterns that have shaped how you relate to yourself and others.
Inside the Tribe, we use tapping and simple emotional tools to help you reconnect with yourself, calm your nervous system, and rebuild trust from the inside out. There is no pressure to share more than you want to, no expectation to be fixed, and no rush to become someone else.
Just space. Support. And people who understand this work.
So if you’re feeling tired of adapting, tired of second‑guessing yourself, or quietly ready to belong without disappearing, you would be very welcome. The door is always open.
You can find The Tapping Tribe here, whenever it feels right for you.