We were halfway through our walk when I noticed it.
My friend — newly engaged, the kind of happy that makes strangers smile at her on the street — was telling me about her relationship. About him. About how much he loved her. About how obsessed he was with every loud, hilarious, over-the-top thing about her.
And yet.
Something in the way she told the story was careful. Measured. Like she was holding herself slightly back even while she was describing a man who had never asked her to.
I stopped walking.
“Can I ask you something?”
She turned.
“Who were you at eight years old? Before you cared what anyone thought. Before boys, before fitting in, before any of it. What did you love? What did you play? What did you want to be?”
She laughed a little. Started to answer. And then — right there on the sidewalk — something cracked open.
Because what came out wasn’t just a description of a little girl who loved to perform and make people laugh and fill every room she walked into.
What came out was this: I felt like a nuisance.
She felt like too much. Too loud. Too big. Too much to deal with. And so she learned, early and quietly, to make herself easier. To ask for less. To take up less space. To become someone no one could ever accuse of being a burden.
She had carried that into the most important relationship of her life.
She was walking on eggshells — in a relationship with a man who was not asking her to. Her inner child was protecting her from a wound that had already been healed. A little girl who felt like a nuisance was quietly sabotaging a love that was genuinely, completely, obsessively hers.
Her work isn’t shrinking anymore. Her work is learning — deep in her bones — that she is not a nuisance.
She is a blessing. Exactly as she is.
A few weeks later I sat across from a client. Let’s call her Ann.
Ann had been married for 38 years. She had done everything right. She had built a full, beautiful, independent life — the travel, the financial freedom, the active mornings and full passport and a car she loves to drive.
And she was ready, truly ready, to find love again after becoming a widow.
When I asked Ann about her marriage, she was honest. Her husband had been older. Much older. Steady. Certain. Safe.
He had given her security her whole adult life.
And when we walked back further — back to the little girl before all of it — what we found was a child who had grown up without a father who was really there. A little girl who ached for safety. Who scanned every room for someone solid to hold onto.
She had found him. She had held on for 38 years.
The marriage wasn’t a mistake. That little girl got exactly what she needed.
But Ann is not eight anymore.
She has become the safe place. She provides her own security now. And the man her eight-year-old self needed — older, protective, the father figure standing in for the one who wasn’t there — is not the man her healed, whole adult self wants to spend her next chapter with.
Ann wants joy. Freedom. Someone to laugh with, travel with, live with.
That is not a wounded woman’s wish list. That is a healed one’s.
And there is a world of difference between the two.
Here’s what I know after years of working with women in love and dating:
Most of us are not dating as ourselves.
We are dating as the eight-year-old who needed something she didn’t get. We are dating as the wound. And we will keep attracting — and choosing — the person who fits that wound perfectly until we stop and ask the question nobody thinks to ask.
Who was I before I needed anything from anyone?
The Exercise
I want you to do this right now. Not later. Now.
Find somewhere quiet. Get a cup of something warm. And answer these questions — honestly, slowly, without judgment.
Who were you at eight years old?
Before you cared what boys thought. Before you knew you were supposed to be smaller, quieter, easier, more. Before the world got its hands on you.
What were you like?
What did you love to do?
What did you play?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
What did you wear — what made you feel like you?
What were your favorite foods?
How did you feel about yourself?
Sit with that last one.
How did you feel about yourself?
Not how you were told to feel. Not how you performed feeling. How did you actually feel, in the quiet, about who you were?
Because that answer — that one, specific, often painful answer — is very likely the thing that has been quietly making your relationship decisions for you ever since.
The girl who felt like a nuisance learns to disappear. The girl who felt invisible learns to perform. The girl who felt unsafe learns to choose safety over joy, every single time.
And the extraordinary thing is — she is doing it to protect you. She is not sabotaging you. She is trying, with everything she has, to make sure you never feel that way again.
You don’t need to be angry at her.
You need to find her.
Here is what I asked Ann to do. I’m asking you to do it too.
Find a photo of yourself at around eight years old. Print it. Frame it. Put it somewhere you will see it every single morning — your bathroom mirror, your nightstand, somewhere it cannot be ignored.
Look at her.
She is the one you’re doing this for. Not to hand her the wheel — but to finally, gently, let her know she can rest. That you’ve got it from here. That you are going to choose someone worthy of both of you.
When Ann started dating again, something had shifted. She wasn’t scanning for safety anymore. She wasn’t choosing from scarcity or fear or the quiet ache of a little girl who needed a father figure to show up.
She was choosing from wholeness.
Joy. Freedom. Fun. A partner to enjoy the life she has already built.
That is what healed looks like.
That is what is available to you.
If this cracked something open for you — good. That feeling is information.
Reply to this post and tell me what came up. I read every single one.
And if you’re ready to go deeper — to build a dating life that actually reflects who you are today, not who you needed to be at eight — book a dating strategy call with me. The link is below. I would love to sit across from you.