Standing in the Spotlight - An analogy for love and attachment, the roles we play

Imagine that you are on a stage. The stage is your life; the audience is everyone your life interacts with. The whole stage is you — even the furthest corners. But there is a spotlight shining on one place in particular. The spotlight feels warm. It feels like love and acceptance. It feels good to stand in it. You feel valued, appreciated, acknowledged. The audience beam up at you with joy.

But when you step outside the spotlight, it doesn’t follow you. The rest of the stage remains dark. The audience go quiet or begin to shout. They want you back where they can see you. You see their faces: anger, disappointment, disgust. Disapproval, shame. They turn away. It’s unbearable, so you return to the spotlight; you dance how they want you to, play the role set for you, allow yourself to be constrained by it, and receive the adoration you feel you need. The audience cheers. It’s all okay — all it cost you was to betray yourself.

For many of us, this stage isn’t imaginary. It’s the emotional architecture of childhood. As developing children, we depend entirely on our attachment figures. On a primal level, we know we cannot survive without them. If we’re met with curiosity and attunement, the spotlight of love follows us around the stage; we move freely, unafraid of ourselves, confident that what is inside us is good and lovable.

But if our caregivers don’t have the capacity to meet us like this, the spotlight becomes fixed. Their acceptance — if it’s there at all — shines only on a role, not the whole of us. When we step outside it, we feel fear, shame, or chaos. So we learn to stay in that narrow, constricting spotlight.

Many things contribute to this dynamic: our parents’ own attachment histories, social pressures, emotional maturity, trauma, poverty — to name a few. None of us choose the family we’re born into.

Here are some examples of what this conditional spotlight might sound like:

• If you smile and do well at school, you’ll make me proud. But don’t cry — I can’t cope with that.
• We love you, but you mustn’t be gay.
• I love you as long as you don’t embarrass me in public. Otherwise, you’re on your own.
• I love you when you’re happy. When you’re sad, you’re “too much”.
• You’re the responsible one. The calm one. The one who never causes trouble.

And some examples of a healthy, moving spotlight — the kind that follows you around the stage:

• You love art? Great. Show me.
• Wow, that really affected you. That’s okay. Come here and tell me about it.
• I love seeing how you are with your friends.
• I can see you’re feeling vulnerable. You don’t have to talk, but I’m here.

Perhaps you can see yourself somewhere in these examples. The beliefs about ourselves that form, that we internalise, don’t just stay in childhood; they echo into adulthood. We might be afraid of anger because it once felt dangerous, chaotic. We might feel ashamed of our sexuality even if we “know” nothing is wrong with it. We might believe we’re too much for anyone to handle because we were once too much for the people we depended on.

This is a tragedy of missed love, but it isn’t the end of the story.

With courage, support, and gentleness toward ourselves, we can step out of these internalised spotlights. We begin to realise we can inhabit the whole stage — the whole of ourselves — without needing anyone’s approval. We start shining our own spotlight. We notice the people who truly see us and allow their light to matter more. In time, the stage becomes ours again. We move freely, explore, stretch, rest.

We become more fully ourselves.