Let me tell you the most dangerous role I ever played. The Good Woman.
The chill, mature, the one who took the high road, the patient one, the funny one, the forgiving one, the evolved one, the one who could look away and call it grace, a good daughter, good sister, a good mama, good friend, a good partner, even a good ex.
I used to think I was just being strong, stoic.
In reality, I was managing an image. And image management is one of the most socially rewarded and psychologically dangerous patterns that we carry. It almost cost me my authenticity because it looks like strength, but it's actually fear.
And the hardest part, everyone applauds you for it. They do. They compliment your composure. They praise your maturity. They call you so evolved. They tell you how admirable you are and how you handled it with such grace and dignity.
No one says. Are you abandoning yourself?
No one asks, is this alignment or is this performance?
because performance is rewarded, especially in women, especially in people who learned at a very young age that being agreeable meant being safe. And that's where this gets dangerous because when you get rewarded for self abandonment, you start mistaking it for identity.
Welcome to the unfolding podcast. I am your host and friend, Yvonne Wink. I'm so glad to be back. I'm on fire today. Here's why. I've been cooped up in the house for about a good week and a half with that flu. And I'm just here delivering some good old fashioned truth. So hang tight. It's going to be a great episode. Thank you for being here today. Today, we're pulling off the mask.
We're talking about image management, the socially rewarded performance that keeps us admired and quietly, quietly disconnected. We're gonna break down what it is, why we do it, how attachment patterns and the nervous system drive it, and what it looked like in many of my own relationships.
You may even see yourself in my shoes at times. By the end of this conversation, you're gonna understand why dismantling image management isn't just growth work, it's the foundation of self-trust.
What is image management, you ask? That is a great question and I'm so grateful you asked.
It's image management is when you adjust yourself so that other others stay comfortable. Ouch. It's when you start to tweak your tone a bit, when you edit your language, when you edit your reaction, you downplay your needs so you don't risk being too much. It's not lying. It's editing.
curating, shrinking, softening your truth so that it lands better for others.
And here's the tricky part. It can look like maturity. Like you walked away and you took the higher road.
Like you're evolved.
It looks like being the chill girl, that cool girl that everyone gets along with, God, she's just so easy going, right? The good guy. The low maintenance one, the strong one, the unbothered one.
But underneath it, there's usually fear.
Because when we believe that being fully seen might cost us love or even just acceptance, we begin performing.
One of the great researchers on this, Dr. Brene Brown, calls it, I love this term, she calls it hustling for worthiness. I did a lot of that. And listen, before you start telling yourself, this isn't me, Yvonne, this is for someone else, because I've got it all together, let me lovingly interrupt you. Human beings are wired for belonging. Every single...
one of us, no matter how moody and quiet and goth you like to be, every single one of us is wired this way. We're wired for belonging. Shame isn't weakness. It's just the fear of disconnection. Shame is the belief that if people really saw us,
All of us, the messy parts, the complicated parts of us, the indecisive one, right? Even the insecure us. All the emotional parts of us, the needy parts of us. If people really saw all of that, all of that truth, they'd leave.
That's where imposter syndrome lives too. Imposter syndrome is just image management in professional clothing. It's that voice that says, if they really, really knew who I was, they'd realize I don't belong here. I know that feeling. I felt like that the very first time I hit record.
It happens to all of us.
So what do we do? Well, some of us curate. Some of us soften our anger. We shrink our needs. We over explain. We become really easy to digest. We become lost. We talk ourselves out of what our gut is trying to say. Sometimes it looks like that person that's really defensive.
maybe even aggressive. Sometimes it looks like that person that just checks out often. Sometimes it looks like acting like we don't care. I'm above this. I am so chill. have zero oops to give. I'm fine. It's not always shrinking. Sometimes it's pretending that we are untouchable.
Image management is not confidence. That's what it's not. It's armor. And that armor is really heavy.
Have you ever wondered where your image management started? Because I know now the wheels are turning in your head and you're thinking, do I, am I image management control? Yes, you are, we all are. Did you ever wonder where it started? Because I did. And when I began unpacking this, it took me way back, years back. Here's what I didn't realize. Image management doesn't,
begin in adulthood, even though that's when we become more cognizant of it, you know, of understanding how we are showing up in the world, but it begins in childhood. It begins the moment that we start asking ourselves, even subconsciously, what version of me keeps connection? What version of me gets the approval, the nods, the smiles?
because we learn early. I get praised when I behave in this certain way. I get attention when I achieve.
I stay safe when I don't rock the boat. And I don't get abandoned when I'm agreeable.
Let's pause here, okay? We're not here to shame our caregivers because some of us listening are caregivers ourselves. We're here to understand the emotional environment we adapted to. I think when we do that, we're able to heal it. We're able to name it, address it, and heal it, and change it. Because attachment theory,
tells us something really profound. Listen, when connection feels uncertain, the nervous system adapts. And we learned this very early. Long before we had language for it, we began performing. Not because we were fake, but because we were trying to survive emotionally. See, if love felt inconsistent,
We learned to amplify, we turned up. We became louder, meatier, more expressive. If love felt conditional, we learned to perform. We became impressive, capable, and super responsible.
If conflict felt unsafe, we learned to suppress. We became quiet, composed, and easy.
See, anxious attachment often sounds like, I will prove that I'm lovable. And avoidant attachment often sounds like, I'll prove I don't need you.
Listen carefully. Both are image management. Both are pretty good strategies. They're both really protective. But neither are fully authentic.
We don't become who we are. We become who kept us safe.
And the version of you that kept you safe at seven might not be the version that builds intimacy at 4757.
So here's where this will get a little biological. Let's do, stay with me here for a sec. When a child senses emotional instability, let's say, even it's very subtle, their nervous system registers a threat, not a physical threat, a relational threat. And for a child, relational threat feels like a survival threat.
our bodies adapt. Some of us learned to fight. That's how we adapted. Some of us learned to flee, to run, to get out of dodge. Some of us froze.
And some of us fawned. I talked a little bit about this in last season and some of the earlier episodes because I think fawn in our trauma responses is not talked enough about. So I wanted to, I'm gonna talk a little bit about that today. Some of us learned to fawn. And so fawning is where I believe image management really lives. So fawning sounds something like whatever you need, it's fine, it's all good. No, I'm good.
huh, I understand, totally. Yes, go ahead, walk all over me. I'll be easier next time. Yeah. That pattern becomes, it gets rewarded, okay? Especially in girls. How about sensitive souls? But I say especially in girls and especially in women.
especially in high achieving boys who learned that that love came through performance. So we grew up and we call it maturity, right? But it's regulation. It's really regulation through approval. I want you to think about it like that. I want you to just ponder on that for a sec. Regulation through approval. So here's the reason I'm bringing this up for this very reason. This is the part that nobody tells you. I didn't know this.
for years. When you live in image management long enough, many, many, many years, your emotional range begins to narrow. So you don't just suppress anger, you suppress your intuition, your own thoughts, your feelings, you suppress your wants, your needs, your desires. You suppress your truth.
And over time, that turns into anxiety, it builds into resentment, exhaustion, and this vague sense of misalignment. You know something's off, you can't put your finger on it because your body knows when you're not congruent, even if your mind is convincing you that you are.
Let's talk about the gender layer for a second here. Women are often rewarded for being agreeable, right women? I know you're nodding your heads everywhere.
We're rewarded for being emotionally intelligent and for smoothing over conflicts, for being able to hold space, being the safe one, right? Holding that container for people to just trum a dump and say whatever it is they have to say. We're rewarded for being that. And men...
are often rewarded for being the stoic one, right? The one that has their chest puffed out and they're unaffected, right? They're rewarded for being independent and just not needing too much. Both can be image management. Listen to this. One shrinks, one distances. Both are forms of armor and neither creates the intimacy.
we need.
So when I say we don't become who we are, we become who kept us safe, here's what that means. The good girl, the strong one, the chill one, the stoic one, the unbothered one. That wasn't your personality, that was your protection. And protection is not your identity, it's strategy.
and strategies can be retired.
I wanna talk about what happens when we get so caught up in image management, Projecting what we want others to see, think and feel about us. This is where it becomes expensive. Not just emotionally expensive, but life shaping expensive. Research in relational trauma, it shows that repeated,
Self-silencing predicts an all-over relationship dissatisfaction. It increases the anxiety and depression that we suffer throughout life. But most importantly, just the all-over relationship dissatisfaction with others, friends, family, lovers, ourselves. So I wanna translate that. Think about it like this.
Every time you override your intuition to maintain connection with something or someone, you erode your personal self-trust. Every time your gut says, that didn't feel good, I didn't like the way you talked to me. And you also say, that's fine.
You just chipped away at yourself. See, self-abandonment doesn't look dramatic. It sounds like, well, it's not that big of a deal. I'm probably just overreacting. I'm not gonna say anything because I don't wanna cause drama. I'm just gonna let this go. I'm sure they didn't mean it like that. I'm sure it wasn't meant to be disrespectful. I'm probably just too sensitive.
Here's the dangerous part. You do that long enough and you don't know what you feel anymore. You don't know what you need. You don't know what's real. You just know you're tired. And when you don't know what you feel, there's no way you can begin to build a life aligned with who you are. That's the million dollar problem. You build a life compatible.
with the mask.
I want to share something. In my marriage, image management looked like being the complicit one, just the, that stoic, solid shut my mouth, silent one. The one who just dealt with it. The one who didn't complain. The one who didn't ask for more than he could give. The one who understood this is just the way it is.
This is just the way he is. The one who looked away.
I thought that made me strong. I thought that allowed me to hold it all together and present as strong and independent and stoic and confident. Because for years, for years, I heard things like, look around you. Look what I provide for you. You want more? Well, you go to work then. You travel. You travel the world then. I'm not stopping you.
I'll quit my job tomorrow if that's what you want and I'll stay home and just watch the kids.
And suddenly my needs felt unreasonable, ungrateful. It felt demanding. It felt like a douche lord.
So I stopped asking. I stopped expressing them crystal clear. Not because I didn't have them, but because I didn't want to look difficult. I didn't want to come off as difficult. I wasn't asking for something impossible. I was asking the wrong person.
But instead of standing in that truth, instead of facing that just head on, I managed the image. I maintained composure. I swallowed it.
Clicked my neck, cracked my neck.
and resentment grows quietly. It doesn't explode at first, it erodes. Because when you abandon yourself long enough, you do, start to disappear in your own life. And I disappeared for years. Divorce doesn't just end a relationship, it ends the version of you who believed performance would secure love.
And even in my most recent image management relationships, managing all of that got a little sneakier, right? Because I had done some therapy. I had grown. I was in school. I was studying human behavior. I had grown. I thought I was aware.
But I wanted to look secure. I wanted to come across as secure and healed and untriggered, unbothered. I didn't want to aggravate him any more than he was. I was already on thin ice living in his house. Right, there it is again. Don't ask for more. Don't ask for more, Yvonne. He was often disappointed in me. And even while I was grieving my mother,
even while life had handed me more than most people carry at once, instead of saying, Yvonne, this is too much. This is too much for you to bear. This is too much to carry. I just said, I'll adjust.
So when something felt off, I intellectualized it. I would soften it. I gave grace. I forgave. I looked away.
days before.
big betrayal. I was being told that I was the love of this person's life. I guess I wanted that narrative to be true. That I managed my doubts instead of honoring them. I gaslit myself before he ever did. That's the trap. You can manage perception. You can't manage reality.
And when the betrayal came, the deepest pain wasn't just about him or the betrayal. It was about knowing that I ignored my own signals.
I felt it and I silenced it. That's the part that breaks you. Not just the betrayal, it's the self betrayal.
And don't think that this only lives in romantic relationships. Image management shows up in all aspects of our life, in all relationships, friendships too. It looks like being that person who always shows up, even when you're exhausted, being the friend who listens continuously, even when no one's asking how you are.
being the person who doesn't confront because you don't want it to be weird. I don't want to make things weird between us. I'm just not going to say anything. It looks like laughing at a comment that's stung. It looks like ignoring subtle disrespect.
It can even look like shrinking your success so someone else doesn't feel insecure. Shrinking all of your accomplishments and successes, your home, when you bought your first home and your car, and when you shrink all of that so that you don't make other people feel insecure. It looks like over giving so you don't risk being left out.
And then one day you realize you're surrounded by people who love that version of you that overextends, so much so that I'm in a complete back bend now. Not the version that has boundaries. People don't always like that version. And that realization was very sobering for me.
Here's the truth though. When someone betrays you, it hurts, sure. But when you realize you betrayed yourself to keep them in your life, that's the grief. That's the identity crack. Those are the moments that you sit in your car in silence and you think, how many times have I done this? Because the deepest wound isn't
what they did. It's knowing that you felt it coming and you chose the mask. That's the part that keeps you up at night. That's the part that changes everything. That's the trap with image management.
And here's the reason I wanted to talk about it in today's episode is because this is what we don't talk about enough. The shame, right? Shame doesn't scream. It whispers. If they see the real you, they'll leave.
So we become digestible, low maintenance, right? Palatable. We shrink until we're so easy to love. But here's what the research on shame resilience teaches us. The antidote to shame isn't perfection. It's authenticity. And authenticity can feel terrifying to someone
who learned very early that love was conditional. Because if love was earned, then being real feels risky.
Image management is just our attempt to control an outcome. Ooh, let me say that again. Image management is our attempt to control the outcome.
If I say it this way, if I don't react, if I stay calm, if I lead with this, if I don't need too much.
But here's the brutal, brutal truth. You can control perception, you can, but you can't control behavior.
You can perform perfectly standing ovation. And guess what? They'll still leave.
You can be so agreeable that it is the antithesis of what you think, feel, and believe, but you just agree and they'll still betray you.
You can be low maintenance, so low maintenance, and they still disappoint you. And what happens? Well, our shame just gets louder. It's loud. says, see, you weren't enough.
It was about incongruence. You were disconnected from yourself and no relationship can thrive when you abandon the only person who has to live with you forever. You.
There's a hidden cost here. There is a danger that I wanna talk about because this isn't just emotional, it's architectural. See, image management doesn't, it doesn't just protect you in the moment, it actually shapes your future.
You attract people who are compatible with the performance. They're compatible with that version that you're putting out there. It's not even the real you. And you wake up in relationships that reward your mask. I just got chills.
You build careers that reward your image, an image that you put out there. We surround ourselves with dynamics that feel familiar because they match the version of us that performs.
And then one day you feel something subtle. This, like a quiet misalignment, right? You're standing there and sure, you're admired, you're doted on, you're clapped loudly for, but you're truly not known. They don't know the real you.
You're valued, right? But you're not seen.
And you can't quite explain why you feel so lonely in a full room.
It's not fate. That's congruence.
The nervous system will always recreate what feels familiar, even if familiar is performative.
You can't build intimacy on performance. You can build admiration. Yeah, you can even build illusions and fantasy, but you can't build safety. And when the mask cracks, because the mask always cracks, it feels like identity death. Because if I'm not the good one,
If I'm not the agreeable one, if I'm not the easy one, then who am I?
I had to face that sobering truth of all of the years of my image management. I wasn't the married one anymore. I wasn't the one who had the big house and the cars and the lavish lifestyle. I didn't have any of that. I was stripped down to nothing. I wasn't the agreeable one anymore. I wasn't just looking away. I wasn't the easy one anymore. Who was I?
When you find yourself there, you can oftentimes find yourself in the crisis, right? It's not always the breakup, the divorce, the betrayal. It's the identity unraveling. Because the role you've been playing your whole life no longer works.
and underneath it, there's someone that you've barely met.
I wanna share something that...
I've been sharing with my day groups and we've just been having so much fun. We're studying ecology. But I wanna share where I can bring this here, bring this home with ecology, right? This is where the ecology comes in. ecology is the study of systems, right? We know this, okay? It's how environments shape behavior, not just forests and just oceans, but systems.
And you and I, we're systems, okay? Your nervous system, your attachment style, your learned beliefs, your environment, right? All of that, they all interact. So when something keeps happening in your life, when the dynamic keeps repeating over and over and over.
question isn't, what's wrong with me? The question is, what environment trained this response? Okay, think about it like this. If you see a lake contaminated, right? It's filled with algae and it's completely discolored and it's nothing that you wanna look at, it's disgusting. You don't scream at the water, you don't kick it.
and throw rocks at it, you don't shame it for being murky. You examine the ecosystem.
Was it overfed? Over-undernourished? Was it neglected? Was there runoff from somewhere else causing this contamination? Was the balance disrupted?
LG is not the problem. It's a symptom.
Image management is algae. It thrives in environments where love felt conditional, right? Where conflict felt dangerous.
or, ouch, I'm gonna say it, authentic emotion was shamed.
even where achievement equaled your worth. What are you doing? How are you performing? There's your worth.
So of course you performed. Of course you adapted. Of course you became agreeable, impressive, and easy. Your system was trained that way. And when you understand ecology, the shame starts to soften. I say this time and time again, you can't carry shame for what you didn't know. I don't carry shame for what I didn't know.
because now you see you weren't broken, you were adaptive. And to be quite honest here, adaptation is really intelligent. It keeps us alive, it keeps us safe. But here's the shift, here's what I want you to hear today. What kept you safe in one environment may keep you smaller in another.
And if you don't consciously redesign your ecology, your nervous system will recreate the old one.
That's not fate, that's wiring. And wiring can be rewired.
That question, what environment trained me to perform? I want you to sit with that because that changes everything. Because now we're not blaming, we're understanding. And understanding gives you power.
When I started to study this and really allow it to just be a whole part of my life, just take over, I started to heal in unimaginable ways. I started to forgive so much more easily and release and let go as I understood. I'm no longer blaming, I understand. And that understanding and that knowledge is what gives me the power. So I'm able to forgive.
others. Yes, I do. But now, now we're coming to the end of the episode and now is where we rise, right? It's the reinvention part. Who are we without these masks that we wear, the adaptations that may have worked for us and for some of us they still do, right? But so we're just cautiously with big wide eyes opened
navigating slowly into what masks work and what don't. So, reinvention is not becoming someone new, especially like that overnight. It's removing who you had to be, letting that old version go. Image management is not your identity. It's a strategy. It was a strategy and it's time to let that strategy retire.
You're not the good girl. You are not the chill one, the easy going one that just takes whatever, accepts whatever. You're not that low maintenance one. Those were roles. You're not the unbothered one.
Those are rules. And rules can be put down or tossed away.
So let me ask you something that might shake you a little. If you weren't managing your image, who would you be? Not who would be safest or who would be easiest, not who would be admired, who would you be?
Would you speak more directly? Would you speak from your heart and just let it riff?
Would you ask for more?
Would you leave sooner? Ooh. Would you cry instead of performing strength?
Would you speak up and risk being misunderstood? Would you make lots of mistakes and learn from them?
because that's where self-trust lives. Self-trust isn't loud, it's congruent. It's when your inside matches your outside. And when that alignment happens, you don't feel this electric moment, you just feel calm, you feel steady, you just know. You feel like you don't have to work so hard to be loved.
That's the rise.
I want to share something that started to really shift everything for me. I would say this is where all of the change happened for me. is where everything changed for me. And it wasn't overnight. And it wasn't this super dramatic moment. It happened internally.
Pardon me. These were the mindset shifts that cracked my mask for the first time. I started to think and believe and know that belonging is not something I had to earn.
that discomfort doesn't mean danger. I could speak up. I could say, don't talk to me like that. I could pack up and walk away.
I could hang up the phone. I could block, delete, erase.
If someone leaves, when I'm honest, they were attached to the image. And I've learned that peace is more valuable than being impressive to others. Self-trust is more important than being chosen.
And if you're like me, if you're ready to break free from all the things that once kept you safe, I have air quotes, then this is where we start building something new.
Okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to sit up tall. Place your hand on your heart. And I want you to do this with me right now. Take a deep breath. And then just repeat after me slowly. I do not need to perform to be loved. My needs are not too much. I can survive being misunderstood.
I am allowed to disappoint people. Lots of people. Today, I choose truth over image.
And I want you to feel that.
is not a revolution. This is not rebellion. That's alignment. That's the beginning of self-trust.
We have to let go of image management, right? It's okay, it's safe. It doesn't have to be this loud thing. You don't have to start yelling and screaming at people, wandering around, stomping, yanking off your wig. You don't have to do any of that. It's subtle. It looks like just saying this, that hurt me. Don't ever do that again.
without softening it. It looks like not explaining yourself past the point of clarity. It looks like not explaining your soul to someone who's so dead set on misunderstanding you.
It looks like letting someone misunderstand you and surviving it.
And it looks like allowing someone to leave because you refuse to perform anymore.
It's terrifying, I know. It's also freedom. Because when someone loves you without the mask, you don't have to work so hard. And it feels good. Have you ever been surrounded with people like that? I know I have. I love it. You don't have to edit yourself. You don't have to shrink. It's where your nervous system just feels calm instead of activated. And that's what safety feels like. And I love being
in the company of those people.
That's what congruence feels like. And once you taste that, you can't go back to performance. Ever.
Again, this is not a, I'm not trying to start a coup. This is not a rebellion mission. It's not even about being confrontational. It's not about burning all the bridges down in your life and burning down your life. It's about self-trust. Self-trust is the ability to say that didn't feel right. Don't do that again. I need more of this, this and that.
I need less of this, this, and that. That hurt me. And this is no longer in alignment.
and to stay rooted, even when someone walks away.
See, when you trust yourself, you don't need to manage your image. I've been able to cultivate that trust and that safety within myself.
Because I know now that if someone leaves because I'm being honest, they were attached to the mask, not me.
And I was never, ever put on this earth and meant to be loved for a mask.
I wanna leave you with this. Image management kept me, safe is a good word, yes, safe. It kept me safe for a really long time. It also kept me unseen. It kept me protected, yeah.
I was admired, probably applauded. See, you can be admired for who you pretend to be. Or loved for who you actually really are. But I'll tell you this, both rarely ever happen together. You have to choose. The cost of image management is exhaustion. The reward of authenticity is peace. And peace...
is worth more than any standing ovation.
And if this episode made something inside of you tingle today, if it made you uncomfortable in a really good way or sit up tall and listen, if you recognized yourself in this story or any part of my story, share it. Because I had no idea that there was a community of people like us out there who felt like I do, who felt like we do, who wondered.
Is there more than this? There is. There is more than performing. There is more than surviving. There is more than being the good one, the one who looks away, the easy chill one.
There's more. And this, my friends, is the unfolding podcast. I am your host and friend, Yvonne Wink. Thank you so much for joining me today. Until next time.
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