Unlearning Pick Me Energy

“Will they choose me?” sounds like a simple worry, but it can become the quiet engine behind your entire life. I unpack pick me energy as more than attention seeking: it’s what happens when your nervous system starts outsourcing authority, and your decisions get filtered through approval, acceptance, and the fear of being seen the “wrong” way. The result can look impressive on the outside and feel draining on the inside, especially for Muslim women who are trying to be excellent, helpful, and faithful while still feeling disconnected from their own truth.

We explore how pick me energy creates an invisible contract: I give more, I overfunction, I prove myself, and in return I should be chosen. Then I draw a crucial distinction that changes everything: explaining your value is not the same as performing for validation. Sometimes you do need to communicate your value at work, in business, in relationships, and in community because people are limited perceivers. The difference is your motive. Are you negotiating for worth, or are you simply making reality clear with confidence and humility?

The antidote is detachment, or nonattachment to the outcome. That doesn’t mean passivity. It means your mental health is not tied to someone else’s response. We walk through practical examples from promotions to dating to marriage, and we end with a powerful reframe: stop chasing visibility and start increasing coherence. Coherence makes your boundaries calmer, your words more meaningful, and your presence more trustworthy. If this resonates, subscribe for more tools, share this with a friend who’s tired of auditioning for love, and leave a review so more people can find the work.

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Transcript

Welcome And Episode Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast. Apply tools that you learn in this podcast and your life will be unrecognizably successful. Now your host, Dr. Kamal Abdar.

What Pick Me Energy Really Means

The Invisible Contract Behind Approval

Detachment As The Real Antidote

Promotions Dating Marriage Scenarios

Coherence Beats Chasing Visibility

Prayer And Closing Reflections

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hello, hello, hello everyone. Peace and blessings be upon all of you. Today we're going to be talking about pick me energy. And in the general modern sense, it becomes a psychological orientation where your sense of worth is dependent on being selected. All of us want love and belonging, and it's not about that, because those are normal human desires. The defining feature of pick me energy is that your identity becomes emotionally organized around the question do they choose me? Do they pick me consciously and subconsciously? In the current popular culture, the term is used to superficially describe someone who is attention seeking or over accommodating for the sake of approval, especially in romantic contexts. But this definition is rather shallow, so allow me to define it at a much deeper level. When you're being a pick me, you're being in a state where you want to be selected or preferred by someone else. It is not necessarily just someone who wants success and love. Again, those are human needs. This distinction is that your sense of worth becomes contingent on being chosen. The pick me energy is the outsourcing of your own authority. This is when your nervous system becomes externally referenced instead of being internally grounded. In this sense, every decision you make begins with a passing through an invisible question, question being if it will be approved by other people. You ask questions like will this increase my chances of being accepted? And that filter becomes so automatic that you don't realize it's happening, you don't realize that it's shaping your life, your decisions, your moment to moment actions. You think that you're making decisions based on your preference, your personality, morality, spirituality, even your wisdom. When you're actually making decisions based on anticipating belonging, and you're editing yourself in real time for social survival. As an aftermath of this, you stop asking what do I truly think? What do I genuinely want? What is aligned for me? And instead your mind becomes occupied with how will this be received? Will I upset someone? Is this still lovable? Does this make me desirable? Is this any less acceptable? And then in this way your life slowly becomes constructed around emotional risk management rather than your own truth. And this is how a Muslim woman becomes profoundly disconnected from herself while still appearing as highly functional. Because externally your decisions make sense and they're socially rewarded, even respected and approved of, but internally there's exhaustion, there's resentment, there's confusion, because in this process you never really consulted your highest self, and your nervous system becomes trained to prioritize belonging over authenticity and belonging. And this makes this dynamic difficult to recognize because this is acceptable and a highly legitimate human need to belong. Human beings are wired for connection. But the problem begins when acceptance stops being a factor in your decision and becomes the governing authority behind all of them. And I want to anchor this powerful concept in your mind, and that is that it's not about your desperation. Many women in fact operating from pick me energy look very polished and highly achieving, even admirable on the surface, because you can be successful and disciplined, accomplished and religious and still be operating from pick me energy. And I always tell you guys because this is never about what you do, how you behave, it's about why you're doing it, who you're being while you're doing it. And a woman being accommodating, dressing modestly, excellent at work, and even being emotionally intelligent, could either be expressing her authentic self or she could be unconsciously optimizing to be picked, picked as a friend or a colleague, as a spouse or as a mother. Pick me thinking creates an invisible contract in your mind. You give something to the world, your beauty, your kindness, your patience, your overfunctioning, and in return you expect to be chosen, respected, even validated. Now, a very important contrast that I want to make in this podcast is that you explaining your values, helping other people see the worth in your work does not automatically mean that you have fallen into pick me energy. And this is a very important distinction because your external behavior can come from two different internal capacities. If you are explaining your value because you're trying to be chosen, or if you're explaining your value because you already know how valuable you and your work is. In one energy you're negotiating, in the other you're correcting any misunderstanding that other people might have about the value you bring to the table. And there's a misinterpretation in the Muslim woman's world in this regard, and that is the thinking that if you're valuable, everyone should see it. And this is a deeply seductive belief that sounds like self respect, but it is a trap. And that trap is if I'm truly valuable I should not have to show it. Because it feels dignified. It feels like you're refusing to beg, but in reality what it is doing is that assuming that the world is already calibrated to recognize the level of excellence that you have to offer. It assumes that people have awareness, they have the capacity to perceive your value accurately, and a lot of times that assumption is false. People are operating from their own limitations, their own conditioning. They see the world from their own expectations. If someone is used to eight hours of average work by their employee, they will not automatically recognize four hours of excellent and extraordinary work that you provide. They will not see it as superior unless you orient their perception to it. And yes, I understand, in an ideal world you should not have to explain your value. And there is value in advertising yourself, your talent, your transferable skills, but this is not an ideal world. Here you might have to sell yourself in a job interview because the person interviewing you might not see your value quite yet. You might have to sell yourself to your customer, because in a business world, the customer might not see what you quite have to offer yet. Because all of these people are coming from their own lens. So as I've been telling you in this conversation, this distinction becomes clear when you shift from please see me to let me show you what you're actually missing. And this is the difference between showing your value and performing for validation. Performing is when you distort yourself to meet somebody else's expectations in hopes that they pick you, that they love you, that they admire you. And in this process, you slowly and unknowingly abandon yourself. And this is the energy that leaves you resentful and depleted. Because deep down, even if they choose you, the version of you they're choosing isn't even the real you. Showing your value, on the other hand, is an act of clarity. This is when you stand in your truth, making it visible to everyone. You're not adding anything, you're not subtracting anything, you're not inflating, you're not shrinking, you're just articulating reality as it's supposed to be. And this is not so much about selling yourself, even though I'm speaking about it in those terms. It's more about correcting another person's mind error that they might be carrying towards you. The focus here is on demonstrating value in a way that serves the system. Maybe it's the system of the outcomes that you are trying to create in your own personal life. Maybe it's a system where you serve your patients, a business, spirituality. This is all the while still honoring your personal boundaries. This is why if you're in a workplace and you're trying to show your boss your value, the focus is not going to be forcing the boss to understand or for her to emotionally validate you. The focus is going to be you defining your value or just simply pointing out where your important work might have been overlooked. This is where your highest soulful intelligence shows up because you reframe the question from why they don't see me and you start asking, how do I make clear what I already am undeniable to the other person? And in all of this, the simplest solution is detachment. Detachment to the outcome is the antidote to pick me energy. When you're attached to other people's approval and acceptance of your value, you are in pick me energy. When you're non attached to this outcome, meaning their input to the matter does not derail you, that means you're showing them your value from true grounding. Pick me energy says I showed you, now you have to choose me. High value energy says I showed you, now you get to decide whatever this means to you, and I get to decide what your decision means to me. And this is where most women in my coaching need the most help. They want to show their value, but still hold on to the control of the other person's response. Because in this case the value you are communicating is tied to their acceptance of it. Nonattachment as I'm describing here does not mean you stop caring to show the world your value. It means your mental health is not tied to them seeing it. If you applied for a promotion at work, you present the project you led, and the whole system improved, you helped generate revenue, you helped solve problems. When you're helping them see the value you contributed, it's not necessarily coming from arrogance or trying to prove your worth. It's not necessarily pick me energy. It can be accurate value communication based on what your belief system behind your actions is. Pick me energy says I explained my value, so now if they don't promote me, it means I'm not good enough. High value energy says I explained my value clearly, so if they still don't recognize me, that gives me information about the environment, I pivot, I communicate differently, or I change circumstance, or I change the environment completely. None of this is about your inherent worth. If you're a woman who spirals for months and question your intelligence, obsessing on every interaction, mentally reliving the meetings, you are in pick me energy. If you're a woman who updates your resume, strengthens your portfolio, continues to improve your skills, and decides whether the environment is still aligned for your future, while your external actions might be the same, you are inherently in completely different nervous systems. You are bringing high value to the table with non attachment of other people's acceptance of it. If you're a single woman going out to meet a prospect and you allow yourself to be fully intelligent, funny, opinionated, emotionally deep, ambitious, spiritual, soft, or whatever it is that's genuine about you, your intention is to present the picture accurately. And this behavior can have two different energies. Pick me energy says I showed him who I am, so now he needs to choose me or something is wrong with me. High value energy says I revealed myself honestly to both of us and we will both determine the compatibility. As you can sense, the difference behind the two is massive. If you're married and you communicate to your husband how you contribute to the household emotionally, mentally, financially, logistically, and then you tell him I want partnership, consideration, emotional reciprocity. This communicates high healthy values. On the other hand, pick me energy will say I finally explained my worth, so now he must respond correctly, and by correctly you mean responding in a way that you deem acceptable. In pick me energy he must validate you exactly the way you imagined. And this of course weakens the foundation of any relationship. So in these examples, the detachment, or rather the non attachment that I'm describing to the outcome is not passivity, because many situations call for you to absolutely communicate your value clearly and directly, because human beings are limited in their perception. Your employees, your spouse, friends, audiences, customers, communities, they're not mind readers. Sometimes your leadership will require helping people see what is already present in you. But your emotional suffering will begin when your nervous system becomes fused to their response, when their recognition becomes the authority about how you will feel, whether your value is real or not. This is why so many women oscillate between over explaining and shutting down completely. They're terrified that if they present themselves honestly and they're still not chosen, then somehow the rejection means something existential. A grounded woman understands completely differently. She says my responsibility is accurate self-expression, my mental health belongs to me, and their response belongs to them. And once you start to see this, there will come a point where you realize that most of your exhaustion has not been coming from work itself. It's not coming from the relationship or even the hard work that you put in your life. It's coming from the constant attempt to be seen correctly and tying your worth to their acceptance. Because when that happens, you try to manage perceptions, which is exhausting work because other people's perceptions are not in your control. Constantly trying to make sure that people understand your intentions correctly, they see your sacrifices, your intelligence, your goodness, this is exhaustive work. You can be showing up the same exact way, and one person will admire you while the other person will criticize you, because human beings are inconsistent perceivers. So it will suit you well to deprogram pick me energy out of your subconscious mind. Because chasing visibility feels very different. It's not loud or narcissistic. Many times it looks like just over explaining or oversharing. You become overly preoccupied with how you're landing in other people's minds. But if you're operating from high value and clarity, it changes your entire orientation to life. Because in that sense you say this is who I am, this is what I value, this is what I have to offer, and this is how much I will participate. And this state is fascinating because it is extremely metabolically efficient. It stops you from constant fragmentation. It saves you from constant shape shifting psychologically. Your words become more meaningful and consistent because they're not overloaded with hidden negotiations for approval. Your boundaries become calmer and much stronger. It is a calm, peaceful energy because you're no longer being drained by managing everyone's emotional response to you. A person in pick me energy chasing visibility and acceptance is trying to increase their attention. A person embodying clarity and high value is increasing coherence. And all human beings are deeply drawn to coherence, even if they cannot explain why. And ironically, coherence creates natural visibility. Because people trust that clarity. People remember it, people feel attracted to it and feel safe around it. Even disagreements become easier because you as a person are deeply anchored in yourself and your opinions. And this is why a lot of Muslim women experience a strange phenomena when they stop trying hard to be chosen. The time and attention currency that you spent for years desperately chasing something suddenly begins to find them without expending any more energy. That way you attract acceptance. So inshallah, my intention here was to do a simple enough job to explain to you what pick me energy looks like and how you can unlearn it. And this way you can allow yourself to show your value to the world, not because you want to be desperately chosen, because your grounded value that you provide to the world is worth revealing. With that I pray to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, O Allah, free my heart from seeking worth through people's approval. Anchor me in the truth of who you have created me to be. Let me communicate my value with humility and confidence. Protect me from abandoning myself for acceptance, and make my worth only rooted in your opinion. Amin Yarabul Almin. Please keep me in your drawas. I will talk to you guys next time.