I Spent Years Chasing Recognition. What I Really Wanted Was Emotional Freedom.

For the first half of my adult life, I thought recognition of something I’d done was success. Not money. Not big houses, fast cars, or five-star hotel holidays. And certainly not status for status's sake.

No. Recognition.

Recognition was the measure of success, and with it came its buddy; respect.

Why? Well, I guess recognition suggested, in my mind, that my contribution mattered and that other people appreciated my input and respected me for it. They’d say, “Good job.” And I’d believe I’d moved another square forward in the snakes and ladders of life, and sometimes, if it was a particularly good job, I went up a ladder.

Did I know what going up a ladder actually meant? Nope. Did I have a particular destination I was aiming for up all these ladders? Nope.

I just thought that going up a ladder was a good thing. People seemed to recognise ladder climbers and that seemed to grace them with respect. And, as respect was something I wasn’t graced with much when I was a child… I wanted some of it. It felt like a level of success.

Now, at this point you may be nodding along with me, or you may be snorting with disdain. Either way, please just bear with me because when I look back on those early decades in my life, I can see why I thought that absurd thought.

As a child, it was actually approval that was the important goal for me. Not because approval mattered pe se, but because it meant I’d prevented hug-removal, smile-removal, and the incalculable meanness of the maternal cold shoulder.

Plus, it also suggested – without guarantee, mind you - that if I could get the odd hug or smile, plus not have to suffer the cold shoulder, I would feel a modicum of self-worth briefly too. It’s amazing how thin a silver lining can be to offer hope, eh?

Of course, I didn't understand it in that way at the time. Children don't sit around analysing their emotional operating systems. They simply adapt to their situation and I adapted to mine. I did what I could to be useful, attentive, well-behaved(ish)… loveable (whatever that means)… just to get a whiff of approval and a droplet of self-worth.

I became the sort of daughter who listened and mooted agreement – even when she didn’t think it. I anticipated problems and mitigated them. I put others (a.k.a. my mother) first which translated into being dependable. I didn’t make a fuss; I just got on with what had to be got on with. And in return for this, I’d gain fleeting approval and a pass to the temporary safe zone.

But what has this all got to do with recognition?… Please bear with me.

During my teenage years after that specific intro to how-to-be-a-human, I thought these qualities were simply part of my personality. It never occurred to me that some of them might have begun life as survival strategies. Nor did it occur to me that I was expending an extraordinary amount of energy trying to earn something I knew had no longevity. I was simply going from one approval moment to the next.

However, once I'd left home, I was at least canny enough to recognise that not everyone was my mother, and because I was thrown into a world of new people the game appeared to change.

I stopped seeking approval and shifted to a more attainable short-term first base goal of seeking recognition.

And at the time, that felt like progress. Like I was growing as a person; adjusting to my new position in life, feeling empowered by a background of emotional manipulation, armed with a better-the-devil-you-know unter-ego that felt comfortable dealing with that as my status quo. Only now, two invisible forces were working on me at the same time.

1.        My childhood survival strategies of chasing approval nee recognition ensured I often attracted narcissistic relationships, including my marriage.

2.        Regardless of whether I was chasing approval or recognition, I was still handing the power over my state of stability to someone else.

And though I thought I had full view of my ‘situation’, I was actually still operating blind. Because…

… It's the absence of it.

And I’m not saying that because I’m hooked on misery, it’s because I simply didn’t walk around hearing people talk about how they were going to face the next day “feeling emotionally free."

Instead, I started to get wind of things like:

·        Walking on eggshells.

·        Craving an approval dopamine hit.

·        Always seeking ways to prove myself.

·        Living according to somebody else's rules.

·        Living according to somebody else’s values.

·        Prioritising everybody else's needs above my own to ensure I was needed.

·        Being scared to disappoint people.

·        Glossing over the truth within myself.

·        Feeling suffocated by expectations I didn't consciously choose.

And my sensors started to detect those things too. I felt the cage long before I recognised the desire for freedom beyond it.

This is the question I've been wrestling with lately. Not because I've suddenly discovered a new philosophy. Quite the opposite, actually. It’s because I've finally managed to articulate the philosophy that has been driving me for over ten years.

For me, emotional freedom is: The freedom to define success for yourself. To live according to your own values rather than somebody else's values. To be free to choose your own needles, your own yarns, and your own personal monkey pattern to knit.

And all our monkey patterns will look different.

For one person, it might mean leaving. For another, it might mean staying.

Another may chase ambition, while someone else simply seeks peace.

You may crave to say yes, where I decide to say no.

There is no universal design that all emotionally free people meld to. What you knit is entirely up to you. But it only counts if YOU knit it.

Over time, and through countless internal discussion with my troop – have you met BB, LHS, the Moodster, Marmie, Howlz, and Woolly yet? Have a look at my website www.knityourownmonkey.com, you’ll quickly get up to speed - I came to realise that the emotional freedom I’d found hadn’t been stitched together through serendipitous luck.

It had been subliminally strategically crafted using three key elements.

1.        Self-Respect

I consciously started to choose the needles I wanted to use for my life designs.

For years, I’d placed other people's needs, opinions and feelings ahead of my own. Not maliciously. Automatically. But the shift began when I finally accepted something surprisingly simple: My needs mattered too.

Not more than everybody else's.

Not less than everybody else's.

Equally.

And though it felt uncomfortable for quite a while, I stuck with it because deep down I knew my self-respect wasn’t arrogance; it was – and is – healthy sovereignty. It's recognising that my values, needs, hopes and dreams each deserve a ball of wool in this monkey I’m knitting.

2.        Self-Honesty

I consciously choose which yarns of my life I wish to work with. Which ones are worth untangling, which ones can go in the bin, and which newbies I am on the hunt for.

Old childhood survival yarns could be transformed into a monkey smile.

Old childhood fears could go straight into landfill.

Failed relationship yarns could be unwound, re-spun, and knitted into great big self-truth hearing monkey ears.

Wasted energy yarns could be repurposed into great big self-truth seeing monkey eyes.

The challenge is that self-honesty requires looking directly at things we'd sometimes rather avoid:

·        The resentment.

·        The disappointment.

·        The hurt.

·        The shame.

·        The fear.

·        The longing.

·        The habits that no longer serve us.

·        The truths we'd quietly prefer remained hidden.

It ain’t always a comfortable process, but I’ve found that comfort in self-trust can be found once it becomes part of your emotional muscle memory.

3.        Self-Responsibility

Every day, then and now, I consciously choose my pattern.

I learnt long ago that nobody is coming to untangle the yarns for me.

It’s up to me to:

·        Decide my values.

·        Define what freedom is and feels like for me.

·        Take the actions required to create the pattern I want to create.

·        Pick up the stitches I drop and unpick the stitches I mess up.

Nobody can knit my monkey for me. Other people can help, support, encourage, challenge, and inspire me to knit it… but they can’t actually craft the stitches on my behalf. The responsibility for my life ultimately rests with me.

Owning that responsibility through self-respect and self-honesty is what emotional freedom looks like for me.

And knitting my own monkey, stitch by stitch, choice by choice, truth by truth... is the only way I know how to live each day now.