Outgrowing the Need to Be Liked

 


If this is the full moon’s doing, then it’s working overtime. It feels like being inside a pressure cooker, where everything you’ve avoided, softened, or swallowed politely is suddenly demanding air. Lately the same lesson keeps circling back, people pleasing. The old habit of shrinking, explaining, accommodating. And honestly, the energy right now wants none of that. It wants to enter its villain era without apology.

I’ve felt tested these past few days, like life is poking me and asking, so who are you really when the masks come off. My emotions have been muted, but my anger has been loud. It started on Sunday. I went to church even though I didn’t want to. Not because I don’t believe, but because I didn’t feel like performing devotion for an audience. Still, I went. The first compromise of the day. The familiar urge to avoid judgment, to keep the peace, to be palatable.

After church, I spent time with a male friend. We talked, we laughed, we existed. Nothing dramatic, nothing scandalous. Just a human afternoon that stretched into the evening. Yet when I returned, I could feel it. The tension. The unspoken disapproval hanging thick in the room. It wasn’t new. It’s been there for a while now.

There’s a specific kind of hostility that hides behind righteousness. The kind that dresses itself up as concern, morality, or godliness. The kind that learns God’s name today and appoints itself judge by tomorrow. I struggle with that energy. The refusal to self reflect, the confidence to condemn, the certainty that their version of holiness is the only acceptable one. I wish I could hand them a mirror, not to shame them, but to show them the fear driving it all.

I’ve realized something uncomfortable. People don’t get angry when you do something wrong. They get angry when you step outside the version of you they were attached to. Somewhere along the way, this person created a saintly image of me in their mind. Quiet. Contained. Predictable. When I stopped living up to that script, disappointment followed. Not because I changed, but because I reminded them that I am human.

I am allowed to enjoy my life. I am allowed to laugh, to linger, to choose joy without explaining it. I am a spiritual being having a human experience, and I believe God intended it that way. This desperate grip on perfection, this fear of slipping, of being seen as flawed, it doesn’t draw people closer to God. It pushes them away. Watching this has taught me something deeply freeing. There is no perfection to chase. Grace already did the work.

What I’m unlearning now is the urge to explain myself to people who have already decided who I am. The villain. The immoral one. The disappointment. All because I chose freedom over obligation and authenticity over approval. And the truth is, their judgment is not my responsibility. I don’t need to convince anyone of my goodness. I don’t need to defend my humanity.

This wound, the fear of not being liked, it’s not going anywhere. It’s a thorn I carry, like a reminder. Not to harden me, but to strengthen me. Like the wounded healer, this pain becomes the place where wisdom grows. What others think of me is their business, not mine.

So yes, this might be my villain era. Not because I’m cruel or careless, but because I’m done betraying myself to be digestible. If choosing myself makes me the villain in someone else’s story, then so be it.

Kindly step into your villain era too, and shine.

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