Today, my partner saw an ad from a friend’s wife on LinkedIn. Her company needs to collaborate with freelancers for marketing and social media.
I don’t have any background in that at all. I panicked and felt awkward. I don’t like when people put me in that position. I felt anxious and stressed, like someone was putting me on a spot for an interview, an evaluation, a performance. I froze and tried to avoid it, but then I said, “Okay, call them.”
They talked, and I listened. I couldn’t talk at all. I felt weird. Someone was promoting me, selling me, and it didn’t feel nice. I have no idea why.
He said that I don’t know everything, of course, and if they want someone to teach me, I could learn. It’s strange, I felt like I’m nobody. Like I can’t find a job myself, so someone found this for me, and now I need to do it. A pressure I can’t name. I felt like I don’t have a sector, I don’t have experience, so people will only teach me. I can only learn.
But I can identify this: these are insecurities that come from a loved one in my past.
It was actually a nice opportunity to learn new skills, skills I’m already developing through my blog, With Elli: content creation, analytics, metrics, scheduling, ads. And an opportunity to work as a freelancer, which is also scary because I’ve never done that before.
So I identified something important: next time, I need time to think. Not to say yes immediately while I’m in that emotional state. I can think about it, organise it in my head, pros and cons, and then talk with my partner and say, “Yes, you can call.”
I also feel smaller around certain people. When someone promotes me, I don’t know why, but I just feel small.
With my partner, sometimes that feeling is triggered because people will just turn the conversation into an opportunity for him. Because he is very good at what he does, and a lot of people offer him partnerships and projects. I am so glad and happy for him, that is amazing, and I know he is incredibly good at what he does and how he thinks. But I feel small when they turn the conversation into a job offer or partnership for him, while I’m standing right there.
What was that? Why do I feel like this?
The Freeze: When Your Body Decides Before Your Mind
What happened when you went silent, when you couldn’t speak, when you wanted to escape, that wasn’t weakness or failure. It was a survival response.
Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal Theory describes how the autonomic nervous system operates through three distinct states. When we feel safe, we access what Porges calls the ventral vagal state, the part of us that supports social engagement, creativity, and connection. But when the nervous system detects social threat, being evaluated, put on the spot, expected to perform, it can bypass fight-or-flight entirely and move straight into dorsal vagal shutdown: freeze, immobilisation, collapse.
This is why you literally couldn’t talk. Your body made the decision before your rational mind could weigh in. It assessed the situation, someone evaluating you, someone narrating your value while you stood there passively, and it responded the way it learned to respond long ago. Probably in childhood, when being “seen” or evaluated didn’t feel safe.
Your nervous system was protecting you. The problem is, it was protecting you from something that could actually have been good.
Why Being “Promoted” Felt Wrong
The discomfort you felt when someone was “selling” you is deeply telling, and it connects to several layers at once.
Psychologist Jeffrey Young, the founder of Schema Therapy, identified what he calls Early Maladaptive Schemas, deeply embedded patterns of thinking and feeling that form in childhood when our core emotional needs aren’t met. One of the most relevant here is the Defectiveness/Shame schema. This schema typically develops when someone close to us, a caregiver, a loved one, communicates, directly or indirectly, that you are not good enough, not competent, fundamentally flawed.
When someone promotes you, it collides violently with that internal belief. It doesn’t feel nice because somewhere deep inside, there’s a voice saying: “If they knew the real me, they’d see there’s nothing here.” So being promoted feels like a lie being told on your behalf, and you brace for the moment everyone discovers it.
Young also identified the Failure schema, the belief that you are inadequate and will ultimately fail at anything you attempt. When these two schemas work together, even a genuine opportunity looks like a trap. The promotion feels fraudulent. The opportunity feels like a test you’re going to fail.
But there’s another piece: agency and autonomy. This opportunity wasn’t something you found, chose, and prepared for on your own terms. It was handed to you in real time, with someone else narrating your value, while you stood there passively. That strips away your sense of control. Psychologist Edward Deci’s Self-Determination Theory identifies autonomy as a core human need, when it’s removed, even good things feel threatening.
Your instinct to say “next time, I need time to think first” is you reclaiming exactly that. Trust that instinct completely.
“I Am Nobody. I Can Only Learn.”
This is the core wound speaking, and I want to gently challenge it.
Albert Bandura’s research on self-efficacy, our belief in our own capacity to succeed, shows that this belief is shaped less by actual competence and more by four sources: past experiences of success, watching similar people succeed, what trusted people told us about ourselves, and our emotional states. If your early environment communicated “you can’t, you’re not enough,” your self-efficacy was damaged at the root. Not because it was true, but because a child has no way to fact-check the people they trust most.
Bandura’s research specifically showed that the beliefs of those who raise us directly shape a child’s own sense of efficacy and career aspirations. The impact flows through a caregiver’s perceived efficacy and aspirations for their children, mediating the child’s own beliefs about what they can achieve. When the people closest to you don’t believe in you, you internalise that as truth, even decades later.
And here’s the thing: you listed your actual skills almost as an afterthought, content creation, analytics, metrics, scheduling, ads, your blog. You have experience. You are building a portfolio right now. But the schema dismisses all of that as “not real” or “not enough” because it measures you against an impossible, moving standard that was set by someone who never believed in you in the first place.
But here is what I also noticed: in that moment, I could see where I didn’t fit. I could name what I didn’t know. But I could also see my actual skills, and that matters. In the past and now, I work with social media. I have learned new skills and I keep learning. Content writing? I am doing exactly that here, on this blog. Freelancing? I am already working alone on my own project, building it slowly from the ground up.
It is not easy to see yourself clearly. It is not easy to see what you can actually do. It’s much easier, especially when you are triggered, to see only your weaknesses, your gaps, the things you lack. But not the experience and skills you have gained over the years. And that is not reality. That is a distorted half-reality. You are only seeing where you fall short, while ignoring everything you’ve already built.
Carol Dweck’s research on mindset is relevant here too. The fixed mindset says: “I either have the skills or I don’t, and if I have to learn, that proves I’m not qualified.” The growth mindset says: “Learning IS the qualification. Everyone who’s good at something started by not knowing it.” Every freelancer started somewhere. The ones who got good are the ones who said yes to the uncomfortable first opportunity.
Feeling Small Next to the People You Love
You were incredibly honest about this, you genuinely celebrate your partner’s success, and that says something beautiful about you. But psychologist Leon Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory shows that we instinctively measure ourselves against those closest to us. When there’s a perceived gap, it activates shame rather than motivation, especially when we already carry a defectiveness schema.
The pain isn’t jealousy. It’s the belief that his competence confirms your inadequacy. That is a distortion, not a fact.
What makes it harder is what you described: conversations literally turning into opportunities for him while you’re standing right there. That’s an external event reinforcing an internal wound. It would sting anyone. But for someone carrying your particular history, it confirms the schema: “See? Even the world agrees I’m the lesser one.”
But that’s the schema talking. Not reality.
And I want to say something important here: feeling small, or having those insecurities triggered around someone you love, does not mean you don’t love them. It doesn’t mean you don’t care about them. It doesn’t mean you’re not happy for their success.
Your triggers and emotions have nothing to do with your feelings for that person, and they don’t have to affect those feelings, if you don’t let them. These are triggers that can activate in different settings, with different people. They are not about the person standing next to you.
But always remember to separate them. Because if you allow those triggers to live unchecked inside your relationship, they can start to affect it. Your feelings are true and valid, but they are not meant for those loved faces. Identify where the trauma started. Find the person, the origin of the trigger. That is where the work needs to happen.
What You Already Got Right
Your plan, pause, think, organise the pros and cons, then decide, is essentially what Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (developed by Marsha Linehan) calls accessing your Wise Mind. It’s the place where your emotional mind and your rational mind meet. You’re saying: “I won’t make decisions from my emotional state. I’ll wait until I can think clearly too.”
That’s a skill some people spend years in therapy learning. You arrived at it on your own, in the middle of processing.
You also did something else that’s significant: you identified the origin of the feeling. You said, “I can identify this, these are insecurities from a loved one in my past.” That’s not a small thing. That’s the difference between being trapped inside a wound and being able to observe it. Between being the flood and standing on the riverbank, watching it pass.
The Inner Critic Is Not the Truth
Here is something important I want to share with you: it’s your insecurities, that inner critic, that tells you who you are and how much you matter. And in those moments of being triggered, it is so important to separate the reality from the emotional state. Because if you look carefully, you will find that reality is not the same as how your emotions are presenting it.
You matter. You have a lot of things to offer. You have skills and dreams. Allow yourself, with practice, to slowly believe that, and make it part of you. So that slowly, those triggers begin to lose their power.
And that is exactly what I am trying to do: identify the trigger, identify the actions and the results of that trigger, and then take action. Say the plan. Know what you need to do next time to protect yourself, to feel safe, and to think clearly before you respond.
To Anyone Who Feels Like They Have Nothing to Offer
If you’ve ever frozen when an opportunity appeared, if you’ve ever felt like a fraud standing next to someone more experienced, if you’ve ever heard a familiar voice from the past telling you that you won’t make it, right in the middle of something that could be good for you, you are not alone.
Starting over is not shameful. Learning is not a weakness. And needing time before you say yes is not a flaw, it is wisdom.
I’m building myself slowly, every day. I’m putting the foundation in, one step at a time. It doesn’t always feel enough. But I’m learning to trust that forward is forward, even when it’s quiet and slow.
With love, Elli
References & Further Reading
- Stephen Porges, The Polyvagal Theory (2011). On the nervous system’s role in safety, social engagement, and the freeze response.
- Jeffrey Young, Janet Klosko & Marjorie Weishaar, Schema Therapy: A Practitioner’s Guide (2003). On Early Maladaptive Schemas, particularly Defectiveness/Shame and Failure.
- Jeffrey Young & Janet Klosko, Reinventing Your Life (1993). An accessible guide to identifying and healing schemas.
- Albert Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997). On how our belief in our own competence is shaped by experience, social modelling, and what trusted others tell us.
- Albert Bandura et al., “Self-Efficacy Beliefs as Shapers of Children’s Aspirations and Career Trajectories” (Child Development, 2001). Open access via Bandura’s publications page.
- Edward Deci & Richard Ryan, Self-Determination Theory. On autonomy, competence, and relatedness as core human needs.
- Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006). On the difference between fixed and growth mindsets.
- Leon Festinger, Social Comparison Theory (1954). On how we evaluate ourselves relative to those around us.
- Marsha Linehan, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and the concept of Wise Mind.
- Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself (2011). On replacing self-criticism with warmth.
