The Subtle Ways We Perform Without Realising

It’s easy to miss the kinds of performance that feel functional. The ones that look like holding everything together, making things work, and being consistent, considered and thoughtful in how we move through the world. Sometimes it’s a performance that doesn’t look like performance at all because we’ve built our identities around it, and because of that, it can take a while to recognise.

I didn’t notice it all at once. It wasn’t one clear moment where everything became obvious. It was more like a series of small exhalations — moments where something in me softened or gave way and I realised I had been holding myself in a way I no longer needed to.

This piece sits alongside When Self-Expression Becomes a Mask, because that was the doorway for me. Getting dressed was the first place I saw it clearly — the shift from expression into performance. But once I saw it there, I started noticing it was threaded through the small, everyday parts of my life too — the way I shaped my home, how I got dressed, how I showed up in relationships and how I worked. It wasn’t a harsh or critical observation, just in a quiet realisation that let me loosen my grip, piece by piece.

These are some of the places I began to notice that feeling — and gently soften them.

For a while, I felt like my home needed to make sense. Not necessarily to anyone in particular, but in a way that could be understood if someone walked in. Like it needed to fit a certain aesthetic or feel cohesive in the way you might see on Pinterest or in a magazine. There was a subtle pressure to choose a “style” and stay within it, to make everything match, to create something that looked considered.

But the more I tried to shape it into something coherent, the less I felt at home in it. What shifted wasn’t a complete overhaul, it was much quieter than that. I stopped asking whether things “went” together and started noticing whether they felt like they belonged to us. Pieces from different seasons, things I’d collected over time or keepsakes from different parts of the world, objects that didn’t necessarily match but held meaning. Emilia’s things, my things, the slightly mismatched, layered reality of a life being lived. The space feels different now. Warmer, more grounding, and not because it’s styled well — it’s not styled at all — but because it’s honest.

If you also have the tendency to try and squeeze your space into a certain design aesthetic or be perfectly curated and coordinated, know you don’t need to change or overhaul everything for your home to start feeling more authentic, warm and lived in. You might just choose one small corner and let it become more personal, something that reflects your actual life and the people in your home, not an idea of how it’s meant to look. Sometimes that’s enough to shift how a space feels to be in.

I wrote more about this in When Self-Expression Becomes a Mask, where I realised how easily self-expression can shift from something personal into something performative.

There was a point where getting dressed stopped being about how I felt and became about how I was perceived. Looking put together, appearing capable, maintaining an image that quietly said I had things under control, and it was subtle, because on the surface nothing was “wrong”. I still liked my clothes, I still enjoyed putting outfits together, but underneath it, there was a tension. A sense of maintaining an image and an outward perception.

The shift came when the question changed from how do I want to be seen? To how do I want to feel? That one question softened everything. Some days it still looks like expression — colour, texture, something a bit more considered. Other days it’s comfort, ease and practicality. But it’s no longer about holding something in place.

If you’re standing in your wardrobe and something feels slightly off, you might try asking yourself that question — how do I want to feel? — and just noticing what comes up. Not forcing a different choice, just letting the answer be there. That alone can begin to loosen the performance.

Makeup was one of those layers for me. Not in an extreme way, but in the quiet expectation that I should be wearing it. In certain environments, it felt like the baseline — to be polished, refined, put together — and over time, it became something I reached for without really questioning.

What I didn’t realise was that it created a kind of distance. A subtle layer between me and being seen as I actually am. Gradually I started wearing less, then less again, until what remained felt like me. Mascara, a brow pen or sometimes nothing at all, and somewhere in that process, I became more familiar with my own face again. My freckles, my skin, the small imperfections I used to feel the need to smooth over — they stopped feeling like things to hide.

If this resonates, it might not be about makeup specifically. It might be something else you reach for before you let yourself be seen. A version of yourself you put on, a layer that feels expected. You don’t need to remove it all at once, you might just notice it. What it is, when you reach for it and whether you still need it in the same way.

Recently I had a connection where I was met in a way I hadn’t experienced before. Not just the easy parts of me, but the full spectrum — my depth, my intensity, my playfulness, my honesty. All of it was received, without me needing to adjust or tone anything down. And once I experienced that, I found it’s very hard to go back to dimming or suppressing parts of myself.

Not because other relationships were “wrong”, but because I became more aware of where I was still editing or erasing myself — the small ways I’d hold something back, soften something or keep part of myself contained. I started recognising that difference more clearly and noticing the spaces, people and friendships where I felt open, and those where I felt like I was slightly holding parts of myself in or back.

Where do you feel most like yourself? Not the version of you that’s easy to be because it’s palatable and accepted, but the one that’s full, a little unfiltered and entirely you. If you’re unsure where you might still be performing, start by noticing where that version of you — the full, unfiltered you — feels welcome, and where it doesn’t.

There’s no immediate action required here but that awareness has a way of reshaping things over time, of shifting how you show up and noticing who it feels most aligned to share your time and energy with.

For a long time, I held myself to a standard of consistency in my work here on this platform — a publishing rhythm, a sense of showing up regularly and maintaining something that looked steady from the outside. And again, it wasn’t coming from anywhere external. No one was waiting on me and no one was keeping track. But I was.

There was a quiet pressure to keep proving that I was consistent, reliable and producing, and underneath that, it started to feel tight. Reading Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout shifted something for me here. It gave language to what I was already feeling — that not everything needs to move quickly to be valuable.

I’ve slowed things down now. I let pieces take the time they need. I don’t publish just to maintain a rhythm. I wait until something feels complete, until I feel ready to release it, and there’s a different kind of steadiness in that. One that isn’t built on pressure.

If this feels familiar, look at one place where you’re holding yourself to a standard that no one else has set, and instead of removing it entirely, just soften it slightly. Give yourself a little more space within it.

For six years, I fully embraced my natural curly hair. I learned how to care for it, how to work with it and how to honour it, and it came from a genuine place — I wanted to model that for Emilia, to show her how to love and care for her own hair. But over time, it became something else, a version of me I felt I had to maintain and keep within the confines of.

What I hadn’t made space for was the fact that I am not just one version of myself. Before that, I had spent years straightening my hair. That version of me existed too, and I found myself missing her in a quiet way. Recently, I cut my hair short and started straightening it again. Not all the time, not as a default, but as an option, and there was something unexpectedly freeing in that. Being able to move between both and to let both versions of me and my expression exist.

For you it might not be about hair. It might be an identity you’ve grown into, something that once felt expansive but has quietly become limiting. You don’t necessarily need to leave it behind, you might just let there be more than one version of you and let that be perfectly ok.

The thing about these kinds of performances is that they don’t usually feel heavy. They feel functional, they make sense and they often work. But underneath them, there can be a subtle tension, a sense of holding something in place, and the shift isn’t about undoing everything. It’s much quieter than that.

It’s noticing where you feel slightly tight, slightly managed, slightly aware of how you’re coming across… and allowing a little more space there. One small softening. One place where you loosen your grip. One decision that comes from how you feel, rather than how it looks.

You don’t need to change your whole life. Just one place where you can exhale a little more fully and let that be enough for now.

If you wanted to take this a step further, you might ask yourself gently: where in my life does something feel just slightly held in place? Not the obvious, overwhelming things, just the subtle ones. The quiet edges.

Sometimes, the shift isn’t about doing more, but about seeing more clearly, and from there, something naturally begins to change.