Belonging To Yourself: The Hero’s Journey Home

What we learned in the mirror, what we learned in the window, and how we find our way back to ourselves.

For a long time, not getting what I needed as a child felt like a wound. Like an injury. And it did hurt. That part is true.

But I don't really know anybody who got through childhood unscathed. This just happens to be my particular flavor.

Rather than calling it a wound, it has helped me to understand it as my particular hero's journey. And the hero in this story gets to be me.

I love mythology, the Odyssey or anything Joseph Campbell wrote. In every great myth, we leave home. We get stuck on some islands. We face some demons. We deal with some monsters. And every single time, something grows in us. We develop. We evolve.

The journey always ends back home, back home to ourselves. But we're not the same person anymore.

This is the map of that journey for recovering people-pleasers.

The Mirror: where we begin

You learned who you were by watching someone watch you.

We all came into this world as a clean slate, full of feelings and sensations and internal experiences we didn't have words for. So we learned what we were feeling by looking at the face of the person caring for us. We learned whether our needs would be met with kindness or as a burden. And we learned the answer to the most important question: Is this okay? Am I okay?

Imagine a child knocks over a block tower they just built. They're frustrated. In a secure relationship, a parent comes over and says, "Oh, I see you're really frustrated."

In that moment, the child learns their feeling is real. It even has a name. And the parent stays. They move toward the child, not away. So the child gets to have the feeling and still keep the connection.

When that happens thousands of times, it gets internalized. Their voice becomes the child's voice. Eventually, the child can feel something, know it's real, know it's okay, and know they won't lose connection for having it.

That's mirroring. That's home. And it's where self-referencing begins.

The Window: where we were missed

Some of us looked up for a mirror and found a window instead.

Go back to the block tower. The blocks fall, you have big feelings, and you look up at the adults. But instead of seeing your own feelings reflected back, you see their distress. Their discomfort. You can tell they're not okay.

So you stop your own feelings. Not because they went away, but because you needed them to be okay. Somehow, that meant you were okay.

A window does reflect, but only partly. You might see a little of yourself, the acceptable emotions, the ones that made you easy. But mostly you see through to your caregiver's moods and needs.

That's how self-referencing becomes other-referencing. Who I am depends on the other person being okay.

I got really good at it. I knew my mom's emotional tone the moment she walked into a room. I could read every room and adjust to make it feel better for everyone, including me. I became their mirror. But a mirror doesn't have anything solid within itself. It only reflects whatever is looking at it.

In a mirror, we're met. In a window, we're missed. And so instead of being met, we learned how to meet everyone else's needs.

This isn't a story about villains. The people who raised us were often missed too. This is simply where the journey leaves home.

The Scanning: where we got stuck

As people-pleasers, we never stopped looking up to find out if we were okay. We just started looking at everyone else.

The block tower looks different now. It's a text that comes through. What does that emoji mean? They didn't put a period. What does that mean? It's the quietness of a partner when they walk into the room.

And we're constantly checking: Are they okay, so that I can be okay?

We never had the mirror that would help us internalize that our okayness comes from inside ourselves. So we keep looking for it outside. We keep outsourcing it. It never got resolved.

Here's why reassurance never quite lands: underneath the looking is a longing for the mirror we didn't get. Even when the approval comes, a part of us knows it isn't from the person we needed, and it isn't from back when we needed it. The breadcrumb never becomes the meal.

People-pleasing is the four-year-old inside of us, still looking outward to ask, "Am I okay?" Just in a grown-up body.

Building the Mirror: the road back

No one was a mirror for me back then. But I can be that mirror for myself now.

When the feelings come up, about a block tower, a text I received, or one I just sent, the old reflex is to look outward. Is what's happening okay? Are my feelings about it okay?

Now I turn toward myself instead. I name what I'm feeling. I tell myself my feelings make sense. I'm okay for having them, and I'm okay in the situation. That's re-parenting. It's offering myself the missing piece that wasn't offered then.

Not everybody has to do this. Someone who was mirrored as a child doesn't need this step, because it got internalized for them.

For those of us who were missed, this is the part of the hero's journey we walk on purpose. And with a thousand repetitions, it becomes internalized for us too, just later than it was supposed to.

Home: the return

No one is coming to save us. And that's okay.

For a long time, I waited for someone to come back and give me what I missed. What I've found instead is that we get the honor and the privilege of saving ourselves. There's a dignity and a self-respect in that, something you can only get by walking the road yourself.

And when we arrive home, we're no longer mirroring ourselves. We're just being ourselves, and feeling ourselves fully. From there, someone else's reflection becomes connection instead of oxygen. We can enjoy being seen without needing it to know we're okay.

We aren't wounded. We're evolving, with purpose and on purpose.

The window, the scanning, the years of looking outward weren't proof that we were broken. They were the road home.

This is my hero's journey. If you're a recovering people-pleaser, it's yours too.

Welcome home.

Watch the full five-part series, Belonging to Yourself: The Hero's Journey Home, on Instagram at @koristrobl.