THE PASSENGER

Growing up, your independence was systematically undermined by your caregivers' excessive help and protection that sent a clear message: you couldn't handle the world on your own 🛡️. Normal childhood tasks were painted as risks and disasters waiting to happen, teaching you to fear rather than explore your environment, while your parent's anxiety became your anxiety through their constant over-involvement and over-protectiveness 🤗. You learned that speaking up or asserting yourself often made things worse, so you developed a survival strategy of learned helplessness—freezing, accommodating, and letting others take the wheel became your safest option ✨. This created an incredible ability to surrender gracefully when situations become overwhelming, to find peace in letting go of control, and to trust others to navigate difficult terrain when you feel lost.

Now you find yourself automatically deferring to your partner's decisions, even when you have strong opinions or preferences of your own 🤐. In relationships, you often take the passenger seat—letting your partner choose where to eat, what to watch, how to spend money, and even major life decisions that deeply affect you. When conflicts arise, you freeze and shut down rather than stand up for yourself, because your nervous system has learned to associate standing up for yourself with danger ⚠️. You secretly believe you're less capable than others and need someone stronger to guide and protect you, which creates an unconscious attraction to partners who seem more decisive and confident—even when they are actually less knowledgeable than you.

Decision-making feels overwhelming—you either freeze with complete indecision or swing to the opposite extreme and make impulsive choices just to assert some sense of control ✊. Your partner may initially appreciate how "easy-going" you seem, but over time they might feel burdened by always having to be the decision-maker or frustrated that you won't share your true preferences 😔. The tragic irony is that your survival strategy of surrender, which kept you safe in childhood, now prevents you from being a full partner in your relationships. You've become so skilled at being the passenger that you've forgotten you're capable of driving 💪.