Needing someone’s approval is like giving them your password.

Once your sense of being okay depends on one person’s reaction, they can adjust how you feel without meaning to. A flat reply, a slow text back, a comment in passing, and your whole afternoon reorganizes around it. Nobody has to be cruel for this to be expensive. The access is the problem, not their intentions.

Notice whose reaction you check first after you do something. Try making one decision this week without running it past them, and sit with not knowing what they think. You can still value their opinion, you just do not have to hand over the keys.