(This article was originally posted on The Voice Nook on Substack.)

As humans, we all develop adaptations.

For a long time, mine was to be exceptionally good at creating the conditions for other people to safely explore and develop their confidence and authenticity…while believing that I would be safest if I ignored my own, like the fact that I have needs, desires, capacity, and limits.

That’s not to say that everything in my life during that time was a lie. Far from it.

It is to say, though, that it took me a long, long while to understand that I am here, too.

I, too, am part of the equation.

And I, too, deserve consideration.

I know I’m not alone in having developed adaptations. And I’m not alone in this particular type of adaptation. And yet, it still feels very difficult to share.

There is no shame in acknowledging our adaptations. There is only compassionate awareness that some part of me was working very hard in those moments to protect me in the best way it knew how.

And…my shoulders, neck, and throat are so tense as I type this…I feel a lot of anger.

For every time my boundaries were crossed because I didn’t know how to protect them – or that I could even have them. For every time I felt I had to give more when I was already completely depleted.

And under that anger, there is a deep, deep well of grief. A dark, heavy sadness for that version of me who was so hurt and whose conditions were so complex that self-abandonment seemed like the safest and most practical option.

Adaptations are tricky. They become so habitual and internalized that you think the adaptation is the real you. Trickeer still…they usually grow out of a part of the real you.

Mine grew out of genuine care, genuine curiosity, and a genuine desire to create safety for other people. Those weren’t the adaptation.

The adaptation was believing that I could remain safe and cared for only if I gave those gifts to others while asking for very little in return.

The best/worst thing about adaptations is that they work. The part of you that needs immediate relief gets attention, but over time, the problems continue to compound.

So, naturally, while I was giving from depletion in order to keep myself safe…I burnt out.

So, did I stop doing it?

No. Not right away. Not for a long time, actually. And…um…not completely.

But at some point, I was so exhausted from holding up so much for so many others that things were starting to crack. Through that tiniest sliver of an opening, a thought appeared:

“If this is what it takes, then I’m not sure I want it. I wonder if there could be a different kind of life for me.”

I remember the exact moment.

Not the exact moment. But not not the exact moment either.

I was sitting in my studio apartment in the Inner Richmond neighborhood of San Francisco. Patting my cat with my left hand, holding my wine in my right, too wired to go to bed, too tired to watch anything but the same show I’d already seen. Sick of spending hours to ‘wind down’ from another 12 hour day of activities that seemed to move everyone forward but me.

So, then did I stop doing it?

Um…sigh…no. Not yet.

But…

That moment gave me the courage to give myself permission to even begin to consider if there could possibly be an alternative way for me to be.

For me, this is usually how change starts – not with a moment of clarity, but with a moment of curiosity that emerges from a combination of fatigue and exasperation.

Our adaptations become such an ingrained part of us that we don’t even know how they came to be there, or how they came to be in charge. At some point, the conditions we’re living in change and the adaptations no longer serve their intended purpose.

But because we think we are the adaptation, when we experience the friction, it can feel more like ‘what is wrong with me?’. If I could only be better, work harder, get smarter, I could figure out my life. Then we double down on what the adaptation tells us to do, and then wonder why it isn’t working. Then blame ourselves.

I did this over, and over, and over again.

Before the crack appeared, and after the crack appeared.

But when that crack appeared, and that thought came through, something really, really important happened:

Some part of me way down deep inside…without any hesitation…said, “I’m here, too. And I don’t have to wither and die while everyone else thrives.”

And I heard it.