Kitija Ozolina · Awareness Mentor for Mothers
Needing Approval: Where It Starts and How to Stop Living for It
The woman who adjusts herself to the room. Who you have to be changes depending on who is watching.
You say something and then soften it. Add a laugh. Change your answer depending on who is asking.
You think you are being considerate. Really, you are managing how you land.
This is about where that started, and how it begins to loosen.
If you recognise yourself here, that is not a character flaw. It is a learned response.
At some point. probably when you were very small. you learned that love was not guaranteed. That it shifted depending on how you behaved. How agreeable you were. How much of yourself you hid. And so you started adjusting. Because adjusting kept the warmth on.
Where it starts.
A child who grows up in a home where love is conditional. where approval is given or withheld depending on behaviour, mood, or performance. learns something very early. That the safest thing is to be what the room needs.
Not a conscious decision. Just a survival intelligence. The child's nervous system learns: if I sense the mood, if I adjust before they react, if I am easy and agreeable and good. I stay safe. I stay loved.
And then that child grows up. Leaves that home. Enters a world of people who are not her parents. And the strategy still runs. Because the nervous system can't tell them apart — the old room and the new one. It just keeps doing the thing that worked.
That is all it ever was. A strategy that was very smart for the situation it was designed for. And is now outdated.
What it looks like in adult life.
Ten signs. Not every one will be yours. But some will feel familiar.
Over-explaining your decisions
Not because the other person asked. Because you need them to understand so they won't disapprove.
Apologising for your preferences
"I know it's silly, but..." before you say what you actually want.
Feeling physical relief when someone approves
A breath you didn't know you were holding. Shoulders dropping. Something relaxing that was tight.
Dreading disappointing people
Not because of the consequence. Because of how it feels to be the one who let someone down.
Changing your answer depending on who is asking
Not a lie exactly. Just a different version of the truth. the one that fits this room.
Not being able to finish a thought until you've tested it on someone
You don't quite know what you think until you see how they respond.
Feeling unsettled when you can't read someone's mood
If you can't tell how they're feeling, you can't tell how to be.
A single disappointed look undoing an entire good day
It shouldn't matter that much. But it does.
Giving more than you have so no one is disappointed in you
Not generosity. Preemptive protection.
The quiet relief when someone doesn't need anything from you
You can just exist without having to manage how you land.
What it costs.
When your sense of okay depends on other people's reactions, you are never fully in your own hands.
You can have a good day and then one person's tone can undo it. You can make a decision and feel uncertain about it until someone confirms it was right. You can know something about yourself and still not quite trust it until it's reflected back at you.
The cost is not dramatic. It's more like a constant low hum of monitoring. Scanning the room. Checking how you landed. Adjusting. It takes up a lot of energy that you didn't know you were spending.
And it keeps you at a distance from yourself. Because when you are always adjusting to the room, you lose track of what the original version wanted.
Where it starts to loosen.
I don't think approval-seeking disappears. I still notice it in myself. The small adjustments. The adding of disclaimers. The monitoring.
But something shifts when you start to see it. When you catch yourself mid-adjustment and notice: oh, I'm doing the thing. I'm shrinking to fit the room.
That moment of seeing is not the cure. But it is the beginning of something. Because when you can see the pattern, you have a choice. Even a small one. Even just to pause for a second before adjusting.
And underneath the adjustment. if you let yourself feel for a moment before you do it. is usually a preference. An actual opinion. A feeling about what you want that exists before you know how it will land.
That is the original version. She is still there. She has just been waiting for it to be safe to speak first.
You adjusted yourself so many times. You forgot what the original version felt like.
She is not gone. She just learned it was safer to wait.
Whose approval have you been working hardest to earn, and what would happen if you stopped?
With love, Kitija 🤍
If saying no is the part that is hard, The Quiet No goes into it properly.
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