Knowing What You Want vs. What Others Expect: Reclaiming Self-Trust After Emotional Outsourcing
Why It’s So Hard to Know What You Want
Ever stood in front of your fridge — door wide open, cold air swirling — and felt completely unsure of what you’re hungry for?
You’re not deciding between sushi or soup. You’re asking yourself: What would my partner want me to eat? What would someone responsible eat right now? What would a “better” version of me choose?
This isn’t indecision. It’s internal confusion rooted in emotional outsourcing.
Maybe the same thing happens in the toothpaste aisle. You’re scanning for the “right” brand — not based on your preferences, but on what a “smart,” “good,” or “mature” person would pick.
This isn’t about toothpaste. It’s about self-trust.
What Is Emotional Outsourcing?
Emotional outsourcing is a survival strategy where you learn to prioritize other people’s emotions, needs, and preferences over your own. You become a master of scanning the room, reading micro-expressions, adjusting your tone, and second-guessing yourself into silence.
This pattern often starts in childhood:
- You were praised for being easy, low-maintenance, or helpful
- You learned to keep the peace by suppressing your needs
- You were rewarded for being “good,” even if that meant self-abandonment
Over time, your nervous system adapts. It learns that approval = safety.
And the cost? You stop knowing what you want.
The Psychology of Self-Trust: Self-Determination Theory
Research by Deci and Ryan on Self-Determination Theory outlines three psychological needs critical for well-being:
- Autonomy — Freedom to make your own choices
- Competence — Feeling capable and effective
- Relatedness — A sense of connection with others
When emotional outsourcing blocks autonomy, the ripple effects are real. A 2006 study by Vansteenkiste et al. found that people who lack autonomy experience:
- Increased anxiety
- Burnout
- Loss of motivation — even in previously enjoyable activities
When you’re living for others, life becomes performance, not presence.
How Chronic Stress Disrupts Decision-Making
Your brain’s prefrontal cortex is the part that helps with long-term thinking, decision-making, and discernment. But chronic stress — like the hypervigilance of emotional outsourcing — floods your system with cortisol.
High cortisol shuts down the prefrontal cortex and activates the limbic system, your brain’s threat-detection center (Arnsten, 2009). You move into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
This makes thoughtful, grounded decision-making almost impossible.
You’re no longer asking, What feels right to me? You’re asking, What will keep everyone else happy?
Mirror Neurons, Empathy, and Over-Attunement
Mirror neurons are the part of your brain that help you empathize with others. They’re why you flinch when someone stubs their toe or tear up during a sad movie.
But when your mirror neurons are over-activated — especially for people with people-pleasing or codependent thought patterns — you feel other people’s emotions as your own.
As Iacoboni (2009) found, mirror neurons are essential for connection, but they also increase the risk of emotional enmeshment when over-firing.
This blurs the line between your desires and someone else’s expectations.
Cultural Conditioning and the Loss of Autonomy
Let’s name it: systems of oppression reward emotional outsourcing.
- Patriarchy trains women to be accommodating and agreeable
- Capitalism rewards productivity, not rest or introspection
- White supremacy expects emotional compliance and silence
- Colonialism disconnects people from their ancestral knowing
From a young age, many of us are taught that to be good is to be pleasing, palatable, and productive — even at the expense of our inner knowing.
A foundational study by Markus & Kitayama (1991) on cultural self-construal found that people raised in collectivist cultures often suppress personal desire in favor of group harmony.
The result? Autonomy doesn’t feel like an option. It feels like a threat.
Somatic Tools to Reconnect With Your Desires
Rebuilding self-trust after emotional outsourcing isn’t about mindset alone. It requires retraining your nervous system and relearning how to listen to your body’s cues.
Let’s look at two powerful, science-backed tools to start with.
Interoceptive Awareness: Listening to the Body
Interoception is your ability to sense internal states — like heartbeat, breath, or gut tension. According to Critchley et al. (2004), interoceptive awareness is strongly linked to emotional regulation and decision-making capacity.
Try this practice: Next time you’re facing a decision (even a small one), pause.
- Place one hand on your heart, one on your belly
- Take a slow breath in and out
- Ask yourself: What happens in my body when I imagine saying yes? What about no?
Don’t rush to answer. Just notice. Is there a tightening? An exhale? A sensation of lightness or dread?
That’s your body communicating. And listening is the first step in rebuilding trust.
What If No One Else Existed? Journaling Exercise
This journaling prompt cuts through the noise of social expectation and brings your own preferences into the spotlight.
Prompt: If no one else existed — no partner, no parents, no social media audience — what would I choose?
- What would I wear?
- What would I eat?
- What would I stop doing?
- What would I finally say yes to?
Set a timer for five minutes and free-write without editing.
This practice helps peel away the performative layer of your life so you can begin to recognize what’s yours — not what was assigned, expected, or assumed.
You Are Allowed to Want What You Want
If you’ve been spinning in indecision or living on autopilot — always scanning for the “right” choice, the “safe” answer, the thing that will keep everyone else happy — I want you to know this:
Your desire isn’t gone. It’s just been muted by survival. It’s buried beneath years of socialization and stress.
But it’s still there. Waiting for you to pause long enough to hear it.
This isn’t about perfection. It’s about practice.
One breath. One pause. One brave moment of tuning in — again and again.
You’re allowed to want what you want. You’re allowed to choose based on you.
And you don’t have to do it alone.
Ready to Go Deeper?
If this resonated, share it with a friend who’s ready to reclaim their own inner voice. And if you’re ready to take this work further, I’d love to support you in Anchored, my six-month somatic healing program for folks healing from emotional outsourcing.
Inside Anchored, we combine nervous system regulation, psychology, and deep somatic tools to help you rebuild self-trust from the inside out.
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