People-pleasing women

When you enter a room, do you instinctively scan it before you speak? Do you soften your voice, adjust your posture or hold back parts of yourself – just in case? Many women make these calculations almost without thinking. And beneath these small adjustments often lies a deeper fear: the fear of being truly seen…and rejected.

In discussions surrounding mental health, particularly those connected to self-worth and self-esteem, experts often point to a complex mix of biological, psychological and social factors. While these perspectives have their place, they rarely pause to ask a deeper question: what does the Bible have to say about this? 

As a writer and biblical counsellor, I have found myself returning again and again to a related question: why does being liked and approved of matter so much to us? And why, in a culture that constantly urges women to be ‘authentic’, does genuine vulnerability feel so difficult? 

That is why I was struck while listening to a recent episode of the Woman Alive podcast, in which one speaker, The Rt Revd Dr Jill Duff, suggested that a woman’s desire to be liked can be traced all the way back to the Fall in Genesis. It resonated deeply with what I had been researching and writing about for some time: could our need to be liked, and our fear of being truly seen, be traced back to the Garden of Eden? 

The hidden fear behind wanting to be liked

These questions are not abstract or theoretical; they surface in the quiet, often unnoticed patterns of everyday life. Long before we consciously articulate them, they shape how we relate to others and how we move through the world. What we are often experiencing in these moments is not simply social awareness, but something deeper. We are managing risk. We are trying to avoid exposure. We are attempting to secure belonging while minimising the chance of rejection. The desire to be liked begins to feel less like a preference and more a form of self-protection.

Woman Alive book club host and author Claire Musters, in her book Taking Off the Mask (Authentic Media), describes how she lived for years behind carefully constructed masks, until she was finally forced to confront them and allow God to help her lay them down. “Masks can look like anything, but ultimately, they’re hiding parts of ourselves from other people because we’re scared of how they might respond to us if they knew the true us”, she says.

Why, in a culture that constantly urges women to be ‘authentic’, does genuine vulnerability feel so difficult?

It is precisely this instinct to hide that scripture first names and exposes in the opening chapters of Genesis, as Bishop Jill Duff points out: “One of the biggest effects of the Fall, more generally, is that Adam and Eve hid from God…And I see that manifest in different ways, but quite commonly, I think we hide our pain from God.” 

Much has been written in recent years about our human need for acceptance, but, as a Christian, I cannot accept that our longing for approval is merely a survival mechanism, nor that vulnerability alone offers a sufficient answer. Scripture invites us to look deeper – not simply at how this desire functions, but at how it has been shaped and distorted by the Fall.

According to Bishop Duff, the desire many women feel to be liked is instinctive; something deeply embedded within us: “There is an instinct to be liked, and I think that’s a fallen desire.”

Claire Musters reaches a similar conclusion, though from a slightly different starting point: “I think security, significance, self-worth are all inbuilt needs that God has placed inside us, and that’s actually what helps us to search outside ourselves for something, which, ultimately, we can only find in God.”

This resonates deeply with my own writing and reflection. Our desire to be liked and accepted is real – and so too are the distortions and coverings that now accompany it. We carry core beliefs about ourselves, often unspoken, such as: “I am not enough” or “I must earn my place”. And, in a fallen world, we learn countless ways of trying to meet these desires apart from God.

When something good became distorted

It is difficult to put into words the magnitude of the Fall. Bishop Jill Duff describes it as an enormous darkness breaking into God’s good creation: “In breaks pride, in breaks shame, in breaks division…a large amount of darkness seems to come in at that point. Never…totally wiping out the image of God.”

This enormous rupture between God and humanity is also picked up by Claire Musters, who points to the coverings Adam and Eve instinctively reach for: “As soon as they realised their relationship with God had changed, they tried to cover themselves. But God saw straight through that…and provided covers far better than the ones they had made for themselves.”

As I reflected on these conversations, I found myself returning to a conviction that has shaped much of my own writing: what emerges after the Fall is not only shame and hiding, but a profoundly disordered fear. Once, humanity walked with God without dread. After the Fall, God’s gaze becomes something we fear rather than delight in. 

The desire to be liked begins to feel less like a preference and more like a form of self-protection

Yet the desire to be accepted does not disappear. Instead, it turns. Where love, security and belonging were once sought in relationship with God, we now look horizontally – to other people – to meet those same longings. Both Duff and Musters recognise this turning. 

Bishop Duff explains: “We all have instinct to build idols, don’t we, and put things in the place of God, whether that’s men, whether that’s being liked and approved of…the true place for our desire [is] to be for God.” 

Similarly, Claire Musters suggests that there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be liked by other people, but that this desire often becomes a substitute for trusting God, as she references Jeremiah 2:11,13: “He says that ‘my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols…they’ve forsaken me, the spring of living water, and they’ve dug their own cisterns.’” 

The constant fear of comparison

We are all tempted with dissatisfaction – and is it any wonder? We try to satisfy a good and God-given desire in all the wrong ways. The result? More anxiety, more fear of exposure – and still no quiet for our hearts. In response, we can find ourselves swinging between submission and dominance, striving desperately to fit in and be accepted.

I know I’m not the only one who feels how a culture built on social media likes and endless comparison feeds this anxiety. And, as we’ve seen, this struggle has deep roots, reaching all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It’s little wonder that sociologists are pointing to what has been called an ‘Anxious Generation’ – girls and young women statistically more prone to mental ill-health.

From shame to acceptance

Against the backdrop of shame and hiding, the gospel speaks a radically different word. Bishop Duff reminds us that the gospel message is clear: “it is Christ who makes us clean before God and restores us to Him, not because we deserve it, but because of sheer grace.”

The longing to be seen and accepted, which so often drives our approval-seeking, is finally and fully met in the love of God. As Bishop Duff explains: “The idea of being redeemed actually uncurls, so you’re happy for God to look at you, you’re not ashamed of nakedness, or however that works out. And actually, you’re held in His gaze, and He sees you.”  

Similarly, Claire Musters says that God sees through our mask-wearing and still calls us beloved: “there is nothing that we can do at all – and there’s nothing we need to prove. But the gospel, ultimately, is about coming to Christ. It’s a call to die to self…and be fully alive in Christ instead.”

The invitation of scripture is unmistakable. Because of the finished work of Jesus, we are called out of hiding and into the security of adoption. Our sins are forgiven, peace with God has been secured and fear no longer has the final word.

Truth that reaches the heart, not just the head

In my conversations with Bishop Duff and Claire Musters, I found myself personally challenged. I love the doctrines that teach I am accepted before God because of Jesus – and yet I was reminded, in different ways by both women, that these truths must travel the difficult distance from head to heart. And for many of us, that journey is where the real struggle lies.

As fallen people, living in broken bodies and often within broken relationships, learning to believe what God says about us is rarely instantaneous. It is a journey we walk with Him – learning, unlearning and returning again and again to truths we already know to be true because of Christ.

Learning to believe what God says about us is rarely instantaneous. It is a journey we walk with Him

For Claire Musters, this involves repentance – not only of outward behaviour, but of wrong patterns of thinking: “We are called to turn away from seeking approval outside of God and to uproot the lies we have come to believe about ourselves, replacing them with the truth of God’s word. This often happens in community, as we learn to be vulnerable with trusted others who can gently point us back to Christ.”

Similarly, Bishop Duff speaks of acceptance before God as something that we grow into: “Jesus is able to literally unravel our lives very tenderly, remove the dark shards of glass and, in that place, fill us with His grace.”

Being seen, known and coming home

It is not wrong to want to be liked, but we are all invited to live from a far deeper place: the security of being loved by God. When we learn to rest in the truth that we are fully seen by God – and yet fully accepted in Christ – the fear of being exposed before others begins to lose its grip. Our shame has already been dealt with at the cross, and it is here that our restless striving can finally find rest.

The gospel does not promise that everyone will like us. But it does promise something far better: that in Christ, we are fully known, fully seen and fully accepted – forever.

Books by those quoted in this piece:

Held in God’s Gaze: Keeping company with the saints and mystics by Bishop Jill Duff (SPCK).

Taking Off the Mask: Daring to be the person

God created you to be by Claire Musters (Authentic Media).