How I Stopped Seeking Approval: A Midlife Awakening
I was six when I first became aware of the importance of gaining approval from my peers. I was in the school playground and Samantha Stevens, the prettiest and most popular girl in my class, was holding court. She was surrounded by a circle of her chosen people, the lucky ones who were deemed to be worthy of her attention and affection.
I wasn’t part of her circle, and I desperately wanted to be.
Seeking approval mattered to me because approval meant acceptance. I was shy and awkward with thick frizzy hair that was far from desirable. My family lived on the wrong side of town and I wasn’t one of those kids who had the latest gadgets or fashionable clothing. My mum often used to pick clothes up at the jumble sales she volunteered at. My dad drove a car that had carpet lining the sides of the interior, presumably to hide something even less attractive underneath. I knew nothing about cars but I knew ours was embarrassing.
I had a few friends, but I was no Samantha Stevens. I didn’t understand it yet, but I was a sensitive introvert who loved nothing more than spending time with my cat, and, joy of joys, reading as many books as I could get my hands on.
But even though I was content with my own company, I was also a young girl, and like most young girls I was socialized to prioritize fitting in and gaining approval from those around me. I wanted to be liked and I wanted to be accepted because that’s what I’d been taught mattered most.
My worth was tied to how well I pleased other people. This manifested in various ways, from adherence to beauty standards to placing a higher importance on the needs of others, especially in my personal relationships. My own wants and desires were secondary to everyone else’s.
Because I was often suppressing my true feelings, I created a chamber within myself that held frustration and resentment. I was behaving in the ways that Good Girls were supposed to, the ways that society had told me were attractive and appealing, but there was inner conflict between how I felt and what I felt able to safely express.
Sometimes my frustration would spill over into anger. And because Good Girls are not permitted to be angry, I’d judge myself harshly afterwards, feeling like a failure for not daintily toeing the line. This pattern of behavior became a theme in my teens and was reinforced a little bit more with every passing year. I wasn’t content with my life but I didn’t know that changing it was an option. Certainly not for someone like me.
By the time I reached my twenties, everything revolved around the male gaze. Acceptance from other women became less important to me. Being approved of by men was now the ultimate prize. And because I wasn’t considered to be particularly pretty, I didn’t have a line of men wanting to date me. But I did have men who were willing to sleep with me.
I used every tool at my disposal to make men want me. Even though I had my heart broken over and over again, I didn’t know how to stop the cycle. I’d hand my self-worth over to whichever man showed me a modicum of interest and then I’d accept whatever scraps they gave me back at the end of our, usually short-lived, encounter. I learned how to hide my sensitivity and create a hard-shell exterior. Whenever men would tell me I wasn’t “like other women” a thrill would race through me. I thought it was a wonderful compliment.
Men who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, commit to a real relationship were like a magnet for me. I smoked endless cigarettes and drank too much wine because I thought it made me more interesting. Everything in my life at that time was a prop to hide behind. My greatest fear was seeing myself.
It wasn’t until I was on a date in my mid-thirties and the man I was having dinner with asked me what I liked to do that I suddenly realized I didn’t actually know. The question hung in the air between us.
What did I like to do? Other than pleasing men and drinking too much, I had no idea.
But the question took root in my body and, over time, it triggered a curiosity that I allowed myself to indulge in. I found myself thinking about the photography classes I’d briefly taken during my school days. I remembered a group of us 13 year old students being handed old film cameras, tasked with taking a photo of anything that caught our eye.
Outside the school gates there was a cat on a brick wall, perfectly posing, and most of the class took a photograph of her. But I was drawn to a crumpled Coke can in the gutter. The texture of the curb creating a striking contrast against the smoothness of the metal. I remembered how I felt when I developed the image in the dark room afterwards. And I remembered how I felt when our teacher singled it out as being the most interesting image of the day.
But instead of pursuing something that brought me joy, something I was good at, I focused instead on pleasing the people around me.
My love of photography lay dormant for decades, along with my love of words. It wasn’t so much that I was suppressing what I enjoyed as completely burying it. My career path became a series of jobs that I thought I was supposed to want to do, ones that other people approved of, but very rarely left me feeling any sense of fulfillment.
And then I was hospitalized with severe pancreatitis.
For a week, I was hooked up to an IV as the doctors tried to help my body mend. I was weak and reeling from the suddenness of the attack. Because the hospital was already full, I was placed in a geriatric wing. One night, when I could finally walk unaided, I needed to use the bathroom which was at the opposite end of the long ward. I shuffled along slowly, pulling my IV stand along with me, and I looked at the sickly and sallow sleeping faces around me.
I thought of all the life I wasn’t living. All the ways I had abandoned myself to prioritize other people. And I promised myself that once I got better I would make some fundamental changes.
I started by not dating anyone for a year. Instead, I used my time and energy to focus on myself. I bought a DSLR camera and I found I had a flair for street photography. I’d spend hours in Brick Lane or Covent Garden, taking great pleasure in capturing ordinary and interesting scenes. This time there was no dark room, but I loved the process of downloading and editing my images at the end of the day, getting lost in a creative haven.
I began reading more books than I had in years, and, for the first time, journaling my own thoughts and feelings. I started to get a sense of who I truly was, rather than who the world had shaped me to be.
A year or so later, I went out on a day date with another photography enthusiast who tried to tell me how my composition could be better. I immediately decided not to see him again. I wasn’t quite sure what I was moving towards, but I was certain of what I wasn’t going back to.
I got to know myself in an unrushed and intimate way. Not as a daughter, a girlfriend, an employee, or a supporting character in someone else’s story. But as my very own person. I found there were a lot of things I liked about who I was, and who I was still becoming. I also found there were some things I didn’t like quite as much, but I decided that since I was determined to fully live my life, I was going to bring my whole self along for the journey.
It’s a powerful thing when a woman decides to own who she is. When she stops separating herself into tiny little pieces of Good and Bad, Worthy and Unworthy. When she begins to validate herself and her experiences instead of seeking external approval. When she sticks an un-manicured finger up at the world and says “Not anymore”.
When such an awakening happens, everyone around her is either horrified or inspired. Some turn their heads away in disgust at what they view as a blatant display of selfishness. But others feel a flickering of something deep inside. A yearning. A tiny spark of “Maybe I can, too.”
The hospital experience didn’t have to change me. I could have gone back to who I was before. My old well-established habits. But I knew it had the potential to be a defining moment. One that I’d remember afterwards as an opportunity. So I seized that opportunity, and I’ve never looked back.
This isn’t a fairytale by any means. There were many more heartaches to come. Many more moments where I floundered and failed in My New Life. But I never went back to the woman I was before. Or, perhaps more accurately, the woman I wasn’t.
These days, I have a very strong sense of my own identity. I know when and where I’m prepared to compromise, and to what degree. I stay tethered to what is true for me, and I don’t allow myself to get lost in anyone else’s expectations. Because I already know where that life leads, and how it ends.
If I’m ever uncertain about a choice I need to make, I ask myself, “Is this taking me a step closer to who I truly am and what I really want, or a step further away.”
If the person, project, or opportunity in front of me doesn’t feel aligned then what is it costing me? And am I prepared to make that sacrifice?
The thing about people-pleasing is that it’s impossible to maintain. Which makes it quite unsurprising that it’s often a female trait, because aren’t we simply wonderful at busying ourselves with impossible tasks. Like conforming to beauty ideals. Like having the perfect figure. Like keeping all the balls in the air, all the time, and then apologizing profusely to everyone when we inevitably drop one and make a mess.
But I want us to make a mess, and not apologize for it. I want our lives to be imperfect and full of twists and turns as we figure out what’s true for us now. I want us to pay attention to the longing that lives inside of us and what it’s guiding us towards. I want us to acknowledge our anger and the real reasons it exists. I want us to divest from the idea that our worth is only as good as the last person we pleased.
My younger self missed out on getting to know who she was. But my middle aged self is taking great delight in this journey of continued discovery, bumps in the road and all. It feels good.
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