I wrote a post titled “The Origin of People Pleasing.” In it, I identified a deep, unconscious wound from an experience in the third grade that later showed up in unhealthy choices in my adult life.
This is where I want to talk about something just as important: why healing those wounds actually matters. Because, honestly, you can’t afford not to.
It’s true that other people can sometimes see things in you that you haven’t yet recognized in yourself. They can see your talents, your potential, your strengths.
But that’s not all people can see. Some people are also very good at reading others. And when they look at you, they don’t just see your strengths—they can often sense where you’re unsure and where something in you is still unhealed.
Unhealed wounds are vulnerabilities.
For some people, noticing those vulnerabilities brings out empathy. It makes them more patient, more protective, more understanding. But not everyone responds that way.
There are people who, when they sense a vulnerability, they exploit it. Because it benefits them.
And this is where it matters.
Because when a wound is unhealed, it doesn’t just sit quietly in the background. It’s like a virus running your internal operating system without your conscious awareness or permission. And it shows up in how you move.
It can look like overgiving, overexplaining, overextending, constantly prioritizing other people’s needs over your own. It can look like not choosing yourself.
And when you move through the world like that, it becomes easier for certain dynamics to take hold.
For example, if someone has a deep fear of abandonment, even if they don’t fully realize it, they may be especially sensitive to distance or withdrawal. In the wrong dynamic, that fear can get triggered—sometimes subtly, sometimes repeatedly—and before long, they’re working harder, giving more, staying longer than they should, trying to restore something that keeps being pulled away.
Whether someone is sitting there consciously plotting manipulation or not is irrelevant, because the effect is the same. And it happens when one person’s unhealed wound meets another person’s willingness to benefit from it. And over time, that creates imbalance. This is why healing matters.
It’s not that you need to become perfect or eliminate every vulnerability instantly. What’s important is awareness, because awareness changes how you respond.
When you recognize your patterns, you start to notice in real time when you’re over giving, when you’re explaining yourself too much, or when you’re abandoning your own needs to maintain connection
And that awareness gives you a choice – a choice to pause, step back and assess.
Healing doesn’t mean you stop being kind or generous or empathetic.
It means those qualities are no longer driven by a need to be chosen or any other external dependency. It means you can give without losing yourself, and you can care without overextending.
For me, doing this work meant going back and identifying where I first learned that I had to earn what should be freely given and mutual. And then deciding, consciously, that I no longer believe that. Because I don’t.
You don’t need to over give to be valued. You don’t need to shrink to be accepted. And you don’t need to prove your worth to people who benefit from you questioning it.
Healing is not soft work, but it is a very necessary form of self-protection. More than that, it’s a decision. It’s a decision to choose yourself, especially in the moments where you’ve been conditioned not to. ❤️