Purple Horses, Approved Lines, and the Part of Us That Never Agreed zx
It’s 1972. I’m five years old, sitting at the table of a brown-paneled kitchen.
In front of me, on page four of my coloring book, is my latest masterpiece: a horse standing in a field.
Inspiration fills my body as I make broad sweeping strokes with my Purple Pizazz crayon, my small hand furiously filling in color before dropping the crayon and searching the 64-pack.
“Sunglow for the hooves,” I whisper to myself, as the crayon streaks across the page.
Time stands still as I finish what I’m sure is destined to be a classic. Maybe it’ll even make it onto the refrigerator for the masses to enjoy…
At last, I show my magnum opus to the nearby adult in the room, convinced they’ll be moved to tears merely by gazing at such a magnificent creation. At the very least, I expect an appropriate pause.
Instead, I hear, “Oh Christine, you’re supposed to stay inside the lines. And are horses really purple? That’s not the right way to do it. You should do another one, but do it the right way this time.”
That was one of my earliest memories of learning that joy had rules.
That aliveness had to be corrected.
That expression was supposed to fit within the lines.
I don’t think I made some grand conscious decision in that moment. Five-year-olds don’t usually pause and form a life philosophy at the kitchen table. But something in me registered it.
What felt natural to me was not the right way.
What felt alive in me had to be checked against the rules before it could be trusted.
The lines on the page became more than lines. They became the beginning of a habit many of us learn without realizing it. Before we trust what feels true, we check for permission.
Is this allowed?
Is this acceptable?
Will this be approved?
That’s how adaptation begins. A child doesn’t need to name any of this for the body to register it. It starts as a pause, a scan, softening the sentence, changing the color, tucking the impulse away before anyone has a chance to correct it.
It’s also where overthinking can begin, as a way of staying safe within the lines.
What will be approved? What will create tension? What will keep connection intact? What will make love feel safe, or at least safer? What parts of me are welcome here, what parts are not and what parts do I need to manage?
Adaptation is intelligent. Often, it helps us survive.
But there’s a point where we start trading our aliveness for survival, and then forget we made the trade.
We learn how to move through the room and how to keep things smooth. We learn what gets approval, what gets corrected, what makes people uncomfortable, and what requires explaining, minimizing, or hiding.
And we edit...a little here. A little there. Until the edit becomes automatic.
Eventually, we stop seeing it as an edit and we identify it as personality.
“This is how I am...”
Practical, responsible, independent, low-maintenance, good at handling things, realistic, reliable, thoughtful, mature, easygoing, strong.
Let that be true where it’s true. You may be all of these. The question is whether those qualities are still connected to your aliveness, or whether they became the version of you that learned how to stay approved of, safe, useful, or easy to love.
A whole life can get organized around that version of you.
A marriage. A business. A way of leading. A way of earning. A way of creating. A way of parenting. A way of being loved. A way of being seen.
We say, “This is who I am.”
But is it?
Or is it who you became?
That’s not an accusation. It’s an honest question.
Because there may be a part of you that never fully agreed.
A part that knows approval from others and alignment with yourself are not the same thing.
You can be approved of and still be out of relationship with your own truth.
You can be praised for the version of yourself you learned to become and still feel the cost of leaving parts of yourself out.
That part can be easy to misread as restlessness, boredom, irritation, resistance, or dissatisfaction.
It may show up as a lack of enthusiasm for the life that looks fine on paper, a longing that won’t fully go away, or the sense that some part of your life, work, relationship, leadership, creativity, or way of being wants more truth than you’ve been allowing.
We can be quick to make that part the problem.
Why can’t I just be satisfied?
Why can’t I want what makes sense?
Why do I keep coming back to this?
Why does this feel so alive when I can’t even explain it?
Why am I like this?
So we analyze it.Try to fix it. Try to make it reasonable. We look for the wound underneath it and wonder what’s wrong with us for not being easier to understand, easier to satisfy, easier to settle, easier to explain.
Yes, sometimes there is healing there, there's an old wound asking for attention, or a pattern that deserves to be seen.
But sometimes the part we’re trying to fix is the part that’s trying to tell the truth.
That changes the conversation.
Because this isn’t about going backward or handing your whole life to the five-year-old with the Purple Pizazz crayon.
It’s about noticing where the approved version of you has been mistaken for the true one.
Where did responsibility become a way of hiding desire? Where did being easy become more important than being honest? Where has fear learned to sound practical? Where has success required more performance than truth? Where has joy become something you feel you have to defend?
The place where adaptation became identity is often where the negotiation is still happening.
Which brings us here…
Where are you still negotiating with truth, freedom, and joy?
Because the part of you that never fully agreed is not automatically the problem.
It may be the place where life is trying to get your attention. The original knowing under the role. The signal beneath the performance. The part of you that remembers approval is not the same as being true to yourself.
Maybe the next honest move is to listen before you correct it, notice before you explain it away, and let the color matter before you check the lines.