A boss says, “This isn't quite what I was hoping for,” about a presentation you spent weeks preparing. It's one sentence, but by dinner you've replayed it twenty times. Or you don't hear back from someone you've been texting, and now you're questioning whether you're attractive or interesting at all.
We might recognize that our reaction is out of proportion to what's happened. But that doesn't necessarily make it go away. Instead, we have another thing to feel bad about: Why do I care so much?
One possibility is that the person has come to represent something beyond what's happening in the present.
The boss is no longer just a boss. Their approval has become a measure of whether we're good enough. The new romantic interest isn't just someone we're getting to know; they've become an opportunity to finally feel chosen.
These things matter. But sometimes an interaction carries the weight of a much larger question: Am I good enough?
We replay conversations, study someone's tone, anticipate their reactions. We may feel compelled to impress them, take care of them, or finally get them to understand us.
Often, we're responding not only to the person in front of us but to a role they've stepped into without knowing it. A critical boss may occupy the position of a parent we could never quite please. Someone's distance may bring back the familiar feeling of having to earn love. We can find ourselves trying to settle a much older story with someone who doesn't even know they're in it.
The holidays can make this especially apparent. We return to familiar people and places, only to discover how quickly we feel like earlier versions of ourselves. You've been making your own decisions for twenty years, but your mother takes one look at you and asks, “Are you really wearing that?” Suddenly, you're fourteen again, defending yourself.
Part of the work is separating the person in front of us from everything we've come to associate with them. Our boss has strengths and limitations. Our mother may have opinions we don't share. Their reactions deserve consideration, perhaps, but not the power to define us.
But insight alone doesn't always loosen the hold. We can understand exactly why someone affects us and still spend hours replaying conversations or rehearsing what we'll say next. At some point, we may need to become interested in something other than their response.
That might mean noticing when our attention has drifted back to them and gently returning to ourselves: what we know to be true about our lives, what’s going well, or something we can enjoy right now. We don't have to wait for someone else's approval or understanding to begin feeling more like ourselves.
Gradually, the person can return to a more ordinary size in our lives. We can notice how they actually behave and decide how we want to respond.
Their opinion becomes one opinion. Their response becomes one response. And we have a little more room to find our own.
Published in Santa Monica Spotlight December 2026.