When Being Yourself Doesn’t Feel Safe
Authenticity vs. Attachment
“We’re born with a need for attachment and a need for authenticity.”
— Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal
Attachment, as defined by developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld, is “the drive for closeness — proximity to others, in not only the physical but the emotional sense as well.”
For a child, that closeness is not a luxury. It is safety.
Authenticity, as Gabor Maté describes it, is “the quality of being true to oneself, and the capacity to shape one’s own life from a deep knowledge of that self.”
The problem begins when these two non-negotiable human needs are pitted against each other.
A child reaches for connection. But what happens when being fully themselves — angry, afraid, needy, sensitive, loud, or sad — threatens that connection?
If expressing who they are leads to rejection, criticism, punishment, or emotional distance, the child cannot simply stop needing the parent.
So the brain does something remarkably intelligent:
It adapts.
It begins to learn:
Don’t show that.
Don’t ask for too much.
Keep the peace.
Handle it yourself.
Become what is easier to love.
The child is not consciously choosing a personality.
They are learning, moment by moment, what version of themselves keeps connection intact.
And when attachment and authenticity come into conflict, attachment usually wins — because for a child, connection feels essential to survival.
What looks like personality later may have begun as a very good survival strategy.
The Mask
when adaptation follows us into adulthood
“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.”
— Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score The child grows up
The original circumstances may be long gone, but the lessons learned in them can remain:
If I show what I really feel, I may be rejected.
If I ask for what I need, I may lose connection.
And so the adaptation can become a repeating pattern.
Adverse childhood experiences are remarkably common. In a large CDC study, 61% of adults reported experiencing at least one ACE — including neglect or abuse, witnessing violence, household substance use or mental health difficulties, or parental separation.
We learn to smile when we are hurt.
To say “I’m fine” when we are not.
To avoid conflict when something matters to us.
We may become agreeable. Successful. Funny. Strong. Independent. Easygoing. Hard-working.
Whatever version of ourselves once helped us feel accepted, connected, or safe.
Over time, these responses can become so automatic that we stop recognizing them as strategies.
The mask begins to feel like the self.
The person sitting across from us may be completely safe. The danger may have disappeared years ago. But the brain uses past experience to help predict what might happen next. When something resembles an old threat — even emotionally — protective responses can be activated before we have consciously decided how to respond.We may fight, flee, freeze, or move toward appeasing others in an effort to restore safety.
The past begins to shape the present — even when we no longer need the protection it once provided.
Becoming Whole
“The aim of healing work is not to shed the personality entirely but to free ourselves from its automatic programming, granting us access to what’s underneath, to reconnect with what’s essential about us.”
— Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal
Healing Is Not Becoming Someone Else — It Is Becoming More Fully Yourself.
Healing is not about erasing the person we became in order to survive.
It is about creating enough awareness and safety that we are no longer ruled by the old patterns automatically.
As those automatic patterns begin to soften, the different parts of us no longer have to compete for control.
The anxious part.
The angry part.
The pleasing part.
The strong part.
The part that learned to hide.
They can begin to exist together as parts of one whole person.
And what emerges is not a completely different self.
It is a self with more choice. More flexibility. More authenticity.
As Maté writes:
“Our genuine strengths remain, with more room than ever before to stretch out and make themselves known.”
Healing, then, is not about becoming someone new.
It is about becoming whole enough for the best of who we already are to come forward.
Meet Milla
Originally from Sofia, Bulgaria, Milla G. Lozanova’s early life was shaped by both loss and profound change. Her father died suddenly when she was four, and at seven, after spending her early childhood in communist Bulgaria, she immigrated to New York City with her mother. Through her mother’s work, she grew up immersed in the city’s museums and galleries, where art became an early source of fascination and a lifelong language for exploring identity, emotion, and meaning. She is the great-granddaughter of Josef Oberbauer, the architect and city planner who helped shape much of Sofia’s historic old town.
Milla holds a B.A. in Political Science and Art History from Tulane University and an MLitt in Contemporary Art Curating from Christie’s Education in London, in affiliation with the University of Glasgow. She worked with leading Japanese art dealers in London and galleries in Boston and New York before founding MLContemporary, through which she curated exhibitions for emerging artists in London.
Since returning to New York, Milla has directed a private family foundation focused on the arts and historic preservation and served on the boards of several cultural institutions. During the pandemic, she also established an experimental salon in her Upper West Side home, bringing emerging artists and collectors together through intimate “salon soirées.”
After the birth of her two children, Milla began to understand how her own early experiences of loss, upheaval, immigration, and adaptation had continued to shape her. This personal exploration led her to the study of trauma, the nervous system, and the protective patterns we develop in response to adversity, and ultimately to train in Havening Techniques, a psychosensory approach informed by neuroscience.
Through this work, Milla began to see a natural connection between healing and the art that had accompanied her throughout her life. She believes that what we are drawn to aesthetically can reveal something about who we are beneath expectation, adaptation, and the roles we learn to inhabit—and that art can become a powerful means of self-discovery.
From this intersection, Eye See Me evolved into a bespoke art consultancy and gallery platform bringing together Milla’s curatorial practice with her work in nervous-system regulation and self-exploration. At its heart is the belief that the way we see art can become a way of seeing ourselves—helping us reconnect with what is most authentic within us and creating space for a more integrated, whole self to emerge.
Milla lives in New York City with her husband, two children, and two dogs.