Perform to Please
The Exhaustion of Being Who They Need You to Be
You've been performing so long, you forgot it was a costume.
When did you learn to read the room before you entered it?
To scan faces for what they needed from you. To adjust your voice, your opinions, your very presence to make others comfortable. To shrink here, expand there, smooth your edges, soften your truth.
You probably can't pinpoint the exact moment. It happened slowly. A correction here. A rejection there. The subtle message, repeated a thousand ways: Who you are isn't quite right. But if you adjust, just a little, you'll be acceptable. Lovable. Safe.
So you adjusted.
And adjusted.
And adjusted.
Until the adjustment became automatic. Until you couldn't remember what you looked like before you started contorting.
The Performance No One Asked You to Name
We don't call it performing. We call it:
Being easy to work with
Not making waves
Keeping the peace
Being low-maintenance
Making people comfortable
Being professional
Being a good daughter, wife, mother, friend
We call it being good.
But underneath all those acceptable names is a truth that's harder to say:
I learned that my real self wasn't welcome. So I built another one.
The Cost of the Costume
Here's what performing costs you:
Energy. It takes enormous effort to monitor yourself constantly. To calculate what's acceptable before you speak, decide, exist. You're not tired because you're weak. You're tired because you're running two operating systems at once: who you are and who you're pretending to be.
Trust in yourself. When you override your own instincts to please others, you stop believing your instincts matter. You stop hearing them at all. Your inner voice gets quieter and quieter until one day you realize you don't know what you actually want.
Intimacy. You can't be truly known if you're only showing a curated version. The love you receive for the performance isn't love for you. It's love for the costume. And somewhere deep down, you know that, which is why it never quite fills the hole.
Your actual life. The years pass. You wake up one day and realize you've been living someone else's idea of your life. Safe. Acceptable. And completely disconnected from the woman you might have become.
Who Taught You to Disappear?
This didn't come from nowhere.
Maybe it was a parent who needed you to be okay so they could be okay. Maybe it was a culture that told you your worth was tied to how well you served others. Maybe it was a relationship where your needs were "too much." Maybe it was simply growing up female in a world that rewards women for being pleasant, pretty, and small.
You learned the rules. You followed them. You survived.
But survival strategies don't know when to stop.
What protected you at seven is suffocating you at thirty-seven. Or forty-seven. Or fifty-seven. The performance that kept you safe is now keeping you from yourself.
The Moment You Start to See It
The shift begins with noticing.
You catch yourself mid-performance. You feel the familiar tightening when you're about to say what you actually think and then watch yourself say something softer instead. You notice how quickly you apologize. How automatically you defer. How rarely anyone asks what you want, because you've trained them not to.
This noticing isn't comfortable. It might even make you angry; at yourself, at the people you've been performing for, at a world that required the performance in the first place.
Good. That anger is energy. That anger is your real self, waking up.
What If You Stopped?
I'm not talking about blowing up your life. Not about confrontation or burning bridges or suddenly becoming someone who doesn't care what anyone thinks.
I'm talking about something quieter. Something more radical:
What if you let yourself be seen?
Not all at once. Not perfectly. Just... a little more honestly than yesterday.
What if you said the true thing instead of the easy thing, just once?
What if you didn't automatically volunteer to make everyone comfortable?
What if you took up the space you actually need instead of the space you've been assigned?
What if you stopped apologizing for existing?
The Fear Underneath
I know why you haven't stopped. I know the fear.
If I stop performing, they won't love me.
If I show who I really am, I'll be rejected.
If I take up space, I'll be too much.
If I stop being easy, I'll end up alone.
These fears are real. They were installed for a reason. At some point, being your full self felt genuinely dangerous.
But here's what I want you to consider:
The love you receive for performing isn't actually for you. It's for the mask. And keeping that love requires you to keep disappearing.
Is that the love you want?
Is that the life you want?
Reclaiming Yourself
This is the work of be-U-tiful One.
Not becoming someone new. Not fixing what's wrong with you. But reclaiming what was always there; underneath the adjustments, the accommodations, the endless performance.
Your real voice. Your actual preferences. Your honest responses. The woman you were before you learned to hide her.
She's still there. She's been waiting.
And she's tired of the costume too.
Start Here
You don't have to figure this all out today. But you can start noticing.
This week, pay attention:
When do you adjust yourself to make others comfortable?
What do you say yes to that you actually want to say no to?
Where do you shrink to fit a space that was never built for you?
What truth are you swallowing to keep the peace?
Just notice. No judgment. No pressure to change yet. Just see it clearly.
Awareness is where it begins.
Go Deeper
If you're recognizing yourself in these words, if you're feeling that mix of exhaustion and longing for something more true, you're not alone.
The Cocoon Phase is where we start. It's a protected space to get honest about what's been blocking you. To finally listen inward instead of outward. To begin the quiet work of remembering who you are.
Or if you're ready for ongoing support as you rebuild your relationship with yourself, Emergence Sessions offer weekly or bi-weekly coaching through the transformation.
Emergence Sessions coming soon
You've spent so long being who they needed you to be.
What if you finally got to meet who you actually are?
She's in there. She's been waiting.
And she's more beautiful than any performance could ever be.
With you in the becoming,
Dawn
Be-U-ti-Ful One There's only one of you. And you’re enough