“We are so used to lying to others that we end up lying to ourselves.” ~François de La Rochefoucauld
“So in your relationship, do your partner’s needs always dictate how things go?”
The therapist looked at me suspiciously after I told him that my partner’s dinner plans had suddenly changed the night before because he was tired from a long day at work, but I was just accommodating his needs.
He was going out for the night and I was getting dressed up and getting ready for a meal at a restaurant. And when I arrived at his house, he was exhausted and decided he wanted to stay home and decompress something instead. At that moment, I said, “It doesn’t matter, you can do whatever you want.” He was serious. I really, totally meant it.
However, later, as I sat in the therapy chair and told that story on the other side of the therapist’s questions, I found myself defending the therapist and defending my position. I’m a therapist myself, so I know that when you defend something, something is wrong.
As I sat with myself, I realized that the truth was that what I wanted most that night was a defrosted meal.
I was a spoiled brat for most of my life, but I didn’t always use that word. I thought I was easy-going, flexible, adaptable, and deeply attuned to those around me.
I’ve always believed that my flexibility is a virtue and my sensitivity to others is a gift, and in many ways that’s true. They display great skills as therapists.
What I still didn’t understand was that underlying these qualities that were woven so deeply into my personality that I became almost indistinguishable from who I believed I was, was a pattern of self-abandonment that had become so subtle and so refined over the decades that it no longer felt like a pattern. They felt exactly like I did.
That’s part of the reason why it’s so difficult to recognize amae. It doesn’t feel like trauma. You come across as thoughtful, caring, emotionally intelligent, and deeply attuned to those around you.
You are being praised for it. You will be an easygoing person, a loving person, and someone who keeps everything in harmony and connected.
It’s really nice to be needed like this. Also, if you receive praise from outsiders, that will be further strengthened and you will continue to be loved by outsiders. But eventually, the body and relationships begin to take on all the costs that the personality was trying not to feel.
Over time, the expression of the pattern becomes larger, more visible, and easier to capture. You become more aware, feel them manifesting in your body before they take hold, and learn to react differently.
But the subtle ones…very secretly become part of your identity. It’s built into how we see ourselves and how we live our lives. “I don’t care, it’s your choice,” I believed in a super easy and completely convincing way to compliment myself on it. It was flexible after all.
That’s natural. Because flattery is ultimately about one thing: fear of mutilation.
Especially in intimate relationships, where that connection is a source of safety, rupture can feel like a genuine fear.
The fear is that if I have too much, or not enough, or am inconvenient myself… you will leave and I will be left alone. So I lean in, read your body temperature, adjust myself accordingly, tune in to you and give you what you need. Because as long as you do that, the connection will be maintained.
From the outside, flattery looks like consent. But your body is always saying no.
As a pet owner, my sense of safety is completely outside of my own body, within your body temperature. As a result, I get very good at reading its temperature. I know before you utter a word whether I am okay or okay, present or absent, open or closed, and I shape myself accordingly. We are master shapeshifters.
Who do I need to be to keep this safe?
That question had been rumbling beneath the surface of so many interactions, so subtly, and for so long, that I stopped hearing it and just became the person I needed to be.
And in order to give all that attention to you, I have to step away from myself. I have to override my body, my emotions, my instincts, my needs, and I do it so automatically and completely that over time it no longer registers as an option. This is just me.
Until, of course, life happens and the cage rattles.
To be clear, I don’t want to demonize flattery. This is an incredibly intelligent safety strategy. It is the nervous system that finds a path to safety through connection and adaptation when it feels impossible to fight, walk away, or shut down.
The problem isn’t the reaction itself, but when it becomes so chronic and ingrained that we lose touch with who we actually are underneath.
There is always a cost to this disconnection. It often involves a disconnection with the body. We cannot unconsciously flatter ourselves, but at the same time it is connected to our physiology.
It also comes with a sense of resentment that builds up in the background, with no clear place to put it, because you weren’t allowed to harbor it in the first place.
Perhaps you are not living in it, but performing in it, so you may have a relationship that feels close but somehow doesn’t. Perhaps it comes as a persistent feeling that people don’t really know, understand, or appreciate you. It’s common to feel unseen, unheard, and unworthy. Maybe your health will pay the price. After decades of suppressing your true self, your body begins to scream with symptoms that can no longer be ignored.
Beneath every accommodation is your part, always waiting.
Maybe if I do enough, you’ll see me eventually.
Maybe if I give you what you need, you’ll become the person I need.
Perhaps if I’m very, very good, you’ll be good to me too.
The hope that someone will finally see you, finally retaliate, eventually show up, just as you keep showing up to them, is what keeps the pattern alive.
For owners, hope keeps you waiting, waiting for something to finally change. That’s what keeps the loop open.
And in those moments when the connection wavers or breaks, when silence or distance appears, when uncertainty arises between two people in the midst of a conflict, we can suddenly find ourselves adrift. I’ve felt it many times. The feeling of swimming in open water with no ground beneath you, not knowing what you’re feeling, where you are or what’s going to happen next, reaching for something to hold you in place.
At such moments, the mind becomes very busy. When the things that kept me anchored – the warmth of connection, the felt sense of being okay in your eyes – suddenly disappear, my heart starts to grab, grab, and reach for everything.
It may also require modification. Sometimes we have fantasies about another life, another future, another partner. Sometimes I find fault with them and build a very convincing case for why I’m better off without them. And if you look carefully at all of them, you begin to see that the same impulse moves through each one. The nervous system is reaching for levers that have the potential to restore a sense of control and safety.
It’s a beautiful and exhausting fantasy. Cognitive loops that energize you, stress you out, and distance you from yourself.
What we really have to feel in that moment is groundlessness itself. This is the entrance.
Unstable ground is a path to our own inner ground. To feel the loss of connection, the emptiness and loneliness that comes when it’s gone, as something that can be survived, something that doesn’t need to be quickly resolved, run away from, or explained away. And to discover that in this groundless loneliness, you are not only still here, but actually at home. Even when outside support is gone, something inside you remains strong.
Only from here is anything truly possible. Including things that scare most owners more than the amputation itself.
Talking.
When we try to speak up, that fear can become truly visceral. Something in your body may contract and stop functioning, your voice may crack or disappear completely, your mouth may become dry, and your body may tremble. All because our nervous system has long learned that confrontation, rejection, and criticism are all very dangerous. And no matter how many times I tell myself, no matter how many times I tell myself that it was that way then, and now it’s different, I can’t forget it.
Your body will continue to protect you in the only way it has ever known.
Breaking this pattern ultimately means learning to feel again.
Beneath the performance and years of shaping yourself to fit the needs of others lies an emotional world that has been waiting for you all along.
In so many of the people I work with, I encounter a fountain of fear that was never allowed to be felt, a buildup of pent-up anger that has no place to go, a deep sadness for what was lost and was never possible, and a kindness towards yourself that perhaps no one has ever modeled after you.
Returning to yourself means growing your ability to feel all of it. It’s slow, at a pace that feels safe, in your body, and in the presence of someone safe enough to hold it.
We hurt in relationships, and we heal in relationships.
Don’t be too hard on yourself if you are spoiled. This pattern is woven into your identity, your relationships, and the way you move through the world. The threat your nervous system feels when you think about speaking out, disappointing someone, or risking loss is very real.
It is a deeply embodied survival response, shaped by everything from culture, gender, religion, and family systems, and calls for patience and compassion rather than self-criticism. Whatever the origin of your particular coquetry, it makes a lot of sense given the world you’re navigating. It kept you safe.
So be kind to yourself. Please be kind and kind from the bottom of your heart.
The way out is not by holding on any longer. It’s about learning to be with open water. Cultivating an inner foundation that is truly yours, so slowly and with great patience that external uncertainty loses its power to restore you.
It took me years, a deeply embodied practice, a lot of time in my own company, a therapeutic relationship that kept me safe enough to try something different, and an intimate relationship where we both agreed to name our patterns and hold space for each other to move through them. A place where you can practice saying things that once would have been swallowed whole, and get understanding instead of a reaction.
Safety made all of this possible. Inside yourself, inside the therapy room, and inside your intimate relationships.
And what I know to be true is that when you build a strong enough inner foundation, when you are truly not afraid of being alone, when you are no longer afraid of conflict or rupture or disappointing someone, something profound changes. Life begins to be realigned around your truth. What has to go will go. What is truly meaningful to you will remain. And ultimately it lands within itself.
There will almost certainly be losses. Those who needed your smallness and silence will have a hard time with your change, but that disruption is a breaking of the pattern. And what’s possible on the other side – relationships, life, and a version of yourself that is actually, truly, fully you – is worth every uncomfortable moment it takes to get there.
About Malaya Rodostianos
Malaya is an integrative physical therapist offering in-person sessions in Melbourne and online sessions worldwide. We combine modern neuroscience of trauma and the nervous system with psychotherapeutic tools and ancient wisdom traditions to take a holistic approach that integrates the mind, body, spirit, and nervous system. She works at the intersection of trauma, authenticity, embodied spirituality, and well-being, guiding clients to release what holds them back from living as their most authentic, complete, and embodied selves. You can find her at http://marayarae.com. Facebook / Substack / Instagram
