I went away on a business trip this weekend, and something weird was bothering me.
There was one person there whose attention I kept wanting. Which, if you know me, is actually pretty unusual.
I’m generally not someone who gives a shit whether the person everyone else idolizes knows who I am. I don’t particularly care about getting close to the “important” person in the room.
But this was different.
This person was the host of the event, and throughout the weekend, I kept feeling dismissed by him. Not necessarily blatantly. Juuuuust enough.
An interaction here. An answer there. Moments where I’d walk away thinking…
What the fuck was that?
And apparently I wasn’t imagining it. Someone else actually came up to me after one interaction and said something along the lines of:
“I'm sorry I was eaves dropping, but I feel like that wasn’t the answer you deserved. That seemed really dismissive.”
Which was strangely validating because at least I knew I wasn’t making the whole thing up in my head. But that still didn't explain why I cared so much.
Because here's what kept bothering me... Someone being dismissive toward me isn't particularly interesting.
What was interesting was why I kept putting my attention on it. Why was I noticing where he was? Why was I noticing how he interacted with other people? Why did I care whether he acknowledged me? Why was I giving this person so much fucking real estate in my brain?
And then I heard this:
If you leave something under the light too long, it burns.
And suddenly it clicked. My attention was the light.
· · ·
This person went on to correlate that attention equals caring... so if you resonated with it, more than likely you grew up believing that attention was one of the ways you learned to show people you cared.
If someone close to me needed something, I should notice. If someone was upset, I should notice. If someone was distressed, I should help calm them down. If someone needed me and my attention wasn't on them? Somewhere along the way, that became you don't care enough. So I learned to associate attention with love.
If I care about you, I pay attention to you.
Which sounds harmless enough. Until you flip it around. Because then... If you care about me, you’ll pay attention to me too.
And when I first internalized this, I actually struggled with it. Because my immediate reaction was:
Well, I’m not an attention whore.
I’m not trying to be the loudest person in the room. I don't need everyone looking at me. I don't usually care about being acknowledged by the person everyone else thinks is important. But that's not the kind of attention I'm talking about.
There’s a difference between wanting to be the center of attention and experiencing attention as a form of care.
Attention can be quiet. It's someone listening when you're talking instead of waiting for their turn, or continuing to look at their phone. It's remembering something you told them. It's noticing when your energy changes. It's actually engaging with what you said instead of brushing past it.
You can show someone you care deeply through your attention without ever making them — or yourself — the loudest person in the room.
And there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting that reciprocated. But if somewhere along the way you learned that attention means love, someone's attention isn't just attention anymore.
It's evidence. Evidence that they care. Evidence that you're important. Evidence that you matter.
And their lack of attention can start feeling like evidence too.
· · ·
And then the starvation starts...So what happens when you're giving someone your attention and they're not giving you theirs? It can start to feel weirdly humiliating.
Almost like you're standing there saying... "Hey. I'm showing you that you matter to me. Could you please show me that I matter to you too?"
And when they don't? You don't just feel ignored. You feel rejected.
But taking your attention away from them doesn't necessarily feel like a neutral decision either. Because if your brain learned:
Attention = love
then removing your attention can subconsciously feel like:
I don't love you anymore.
Or:
I'm being mean.
Or:
I'm abandoning you.
So now you're trapped. You don't want to keep chasing their attention. But taking yours away feels wrong too. And that's where I think this almost manic starvation can start. You start trying to earn something that was never supposed to be earned in the first place.
Their interest. Their approval. Their acknowledgment. Their love.
And the more starved you feel for it, the less you act like yourself. Because now you're monitoring everything.
· · ·
Because you're not just studying them. You're grading yourself... *enter all my over-thinkers and ruminators...* y'all can certainly relate!
What did they mean by that? Why did they answer me like that? They were warmer with that person. Did I say something wrong? Do they not like me? Should I have approached that differently? Why didn't they acknowledge me?
And suddenly you're studying every facial expression, interaction, tone change and mannerism.
But here's what really fucked me up this weekend...When their attention finally IS on you, you assume they're looking at you the same way you've been looking at yourself.
Grading. Assessing. Evaluating. Deciding how worthy you are of their attention. Except they might not be doing any of that.
You are.
You've been standing under your own microscope the entire time. And now you're assuming everyone else is holding the same magnifying glass. No wonder it feels fucking exhausting.
And this is where their lack of attention stops being information about them and starts becoming evidence about you.
Instead of thinking:
"Huh. This person isn't giving me the kind of attention or care I give them."
You start thinking:
"What do I need to do differently to make them want to?"
And that's an entirely different game.
· · ·
So take the light off them. But I'll tell ya, my first instinct when I started understanding all of this was almost to turn the spotlight onto this person. Really look at them.
Take them off whatever pedestal I had unknowingly put them on. Notice the dismissiveness. Notice the behavior. Trust the instincts I had about them in the first place.
And I do think there's something important there.
Sometimes we spend so much time wondering why someone isn't responding to us differently that we forget to ask a much simpler question... Do I even like the way this person treats me?
But I don't think the answer is to spend MORE time analyzing them. Because then I'm still giving them my attention. I'm just doing it differently.
Maybe the answer is much simpler: I noticed how you treated me. I trust what I noticed. I don't need to keep investigating it.
Because someone's inability or unwillingness to give me their attention doesn't require me to work harder for it. And it certainly doesn't require me to burn myself trying to earn it.
I can just… take the light off them. And when I do, something else becomes visible. The people who are paying attention. The person who noticed I had been dismissed without me even saying anything.
The people checking in. The people listening. The people loving me in ways I wasn't even noticing because I was staring so fucking hard at the one person who wasn't.
Maybe that's the real danger of leaving something under the light too long.
It's not only that you burn the thing you're staring at.
You leave everything else in the dark.
· · ·
This Week's Practice: Where is Your Light Going
So maybe this week, notice where your light (or attention) is going:
- Who are you studying?
- Whose response are you waiting for?
- Whose approval are you trying to earn?
- And when someone's attention isn't there, are you allowing that to be information about the relationship…
- or are you turning it into a verdict about yourself?
Because you don't have to convince yourself they secretly care. You don't have to prove they're an asshole either. You can trust what you've experienced.
Take your attention back. And see what was sitting in the light with you the entire time.
🎧 This Week on the Hustle Rebels Podcast
🎙️ If You're New Here — Catch Up: Last week, I brought back a newsletter that never actually made it to air — and somehow it turned into one of those conversations people still reference months later.
It starts with a ridiculous debate about showering on shift and not washing your legs, but quickly spirals into a much bigger question: how much of your life is actually built on rules you never chose? I was traveling when this was released and in the middle of questioning a lot of my own “proven” strategies and playbooks — and realizing I was still following someone else’s blueprint. So if you're in the middle of questioning "why am I doing this shit?"... this episode will probably hit.
Watch on YouTube:
Listen Here: [You're Not Broken, the Blueprint Is: Burnout, ADHD & Doing It Your Way]
New here? Or feeling nostalgic?
Want to read previous newsletters?
Check em out here: [Read Previous Editions of The Weekly Recharge]
Until next week — be careful what you keep under the light. Your attention is valuable. Spend it where it’s actually deserved.
- Renae
Wayward Wellness Coaching
Hustle Rebels Podcast
