How much of what we choose do we really choose by ourselves?

A reflection on belonging, approval and the moment when we stop confusing adaptation with identity.

The human need for belonging

Addressing this issue in greater depth requires going beyond observable behavior and recognizing a fundamental human need: belonging. In many cases, adaptation arises as a learned strategy to gain acceptance, avoid rejection and maintain meaningful bonds.

Many decisions do not respond to a lack of personal strength, but to early learning in which approval was linked, directly or symbolically, to emotional security. Thus, we learn to identify which version of herself receives recognition and begins to reproduce it until it becomes a usual way of relating and living it automatically.

From this perspective, a central question arises:

How many of our decisions have been truly our own?

From being authentic to learning approval

Authenticity is usually a natural expression in the early stages of life. A child manifests his needs, emotions and interests without constantly evaluating whether they will be approved by others.

Over time, however, he begins to identify which behaviors generate closeness, recognition or affection, and which produce distance, silence or disapproval.

Thus begins a conditioning process that does not always respond to a conscious intention to harm, but to family, social and cultural models that transmit a certain way of understanding how life "should" be lived.

The learned mandates

In many contexts, women have been educated to associate personal value with care, complacency, availability, adaptation and external validation. In parallel, many men have learned to link their value with strength, productivity, emotional control and the ability to resolve without asking for support.

Although these mandates are expressed in different ways, they usually produce a common consequence: the construction of a character oriented to meet expectations.

The more functional that character is in the environment, the more difficult it can be to distinguish it from authentic identity.

These roles can fulfill a function at certain stages of life: they allow them to survive emotionally, belong, build relationships and respond to the demands of the environment. However, when they cease to be conscious choices and become automatic responses, they can limit the person's authentic expression.

From identity to expectation

Over time, the question of identity can shift progressively:

Who am I?

And be tacitly replaced by a question focused on adaptation:

What do they expect from me?

This dynamic may explain why some people achieve significant goals and still experience a persistent feeling of emptiness. They do not necessarily lack success or recognition; in many cases, they have distanced themselves from their own aspects that did not find space to develop.

Healthy adaptation and personal abandonment

Distinguishing between adaptation and personal abandonment is essential. Adapting implies learning, maturing and responding flexibly to different contexts without losing touch with one's own values. Personal abandonment, on the other hand, appears when the modification of behavior compromises identity, one's own voice or basic needs to avoid disapproval, conflict or loss of acceptance.

The difference is not in change, because every life implies change, but in the motivation that sustains that change. When an adaptation is born from a conscious choice, it can strengthen the relationship with the environment; when it is born of fear, it can progressively erode self-esteem and the sense of identity.

Internal disconnection signals

Personal abandonment usually manifests itself gradually. Some frequent signs include:

• Silence your own opinions for fear of discomfort or conflict.

• Make decisions guided mainly by the fear of rejection or disapproval.

• Choose relationships, projects or lifestyles because they seem correct, even if they do not reflect a personal conviction.

• Feel a persistent sense of emptiness, even when you receive external recognition or approval.

  
  

The process of returning to one's own identity

One of the relevant tasks of maturity may consist precisely in reviewing those patterns. In stages of transition - when family, work, relationships, body or priorities change - spaces may appear that invite you to ask a previously postponed question: what do I want?

This question may seem simple, but it is not always. For those who have spent years responding to the needs of others, recognizing their own desires can feel like learning a new language. From this perspective, maturity does not imply accumulating definitive answers, but developing the ability to question beliefs and roles that for years were assumed as unquestionable truths.

There is a significant difference between leading a functional life and building a meaningful life.

Isabel Ruiz

Questions to reconnect with personal essence

That construction begins when we stop defining ourselves only by what we believe necessary to obtain love, recognition or acceptance, and we begin to ask questions more aligned with our inner life:

•     ¿What do I deeply value?

•        ¿What principles do I want to express in my life?

•    ¿What part of me is still authentic and what part I learned to be accepted?

• If no one could judge me, what would change my way of living?

In this sense, personal development does not always consist in adding new goals or demands, but in progressively identifying and dismantling the layers of conditioning that have limited the authentic expression of the person.

The return to authenticity

When the need to live according to external expectations is reduced, it becomes possible to recognize an essential idea: it is not always necessary to become another person to move forward. In many cases, it is about stopping playing a role that was once useful, but that no longer fully represents who you are today.

Thanking the versions that allowed us to survive, care for, build or move forward does not require staying within them indefinitely. There is an important difference between recognizing who left at a given stage and continuing to inhabit an identity that is no longer consistent.

Criticism of social conditioning acquires depth when it leads us to an essential question:

Am I living from my authentic identity or from a version built to ensure belonging and approval??

Who am I when I no longer need to please, to feel at peace with myself?

Answering these questions honestly can open the way to a truly transformative reflection: a life less oriented to fit in and more committed to expressing oneself from authenticity respecting the other and under the shelter of self-esteem.

Isabel Ruiz -Mentora Humanista -Life Meaning Counselor -Life Coach 🦋🦋🦋