The Mountain and the Mirror: Why We Put People on Pedestals

Have you ever found yourself looking up to someone and feeling smaller in the process?

Maybe it was a parent, a partner, a therapist, a spiritual teacher, a celebrity, an influencer, or someone who simply seemed to have life figured out. At some point, many of us begin treating certain people as if they are wiser, more capable, more evolved, or somehow more important than we are.

But why do we do this?

In this episode, we explore the psychology, neuroscience, attachment patterns, and cultural influences behind pedestal building. We look at how childhood experiences shape our tendency to seek certainty in others, why confidence can feel like safety, how projection works, and how social media amplifies the illusion that some people have all the answers.

You’ll learn why putting people on pedestals isn’t a sign of weakness, but a deeply human attempt to find security in an uncertain world. More importantly, we’ll explore how to admire others without abandoning yourself, how to recognize when you’re giving away your authority, and how to develop the self-trust needed to stand on your own ground.

Because healing isn’t about tearing people down.

It’s about remembering that no one is above you, and you were never beneath them.

Join me for a compassionate conversation about admiration, attachment, self-trust, and the freedom that comes from meeting people eye to eye.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello, lovely people. Welcome back to my podcast. I am as always I'm very, very glad to be here, and I'm glad that you're here. So I wanted to start today with a picture. Just imagine standing in a valley looking up at a giant mountain. From where you're standing, it looks just absolutely magnificent, right? Massive, perfect, almost mythical. The peak kind of disappears into the clouds, the edges seem smooth, the shape is just breathtaking. And from that distance, it's easy to assume the mountain is exactly what it appears to be, right? But let's say that you begin climbing it, right? And something really interesting happens. You discover some loose rocks, uneven ground, cracks, mud, dead trees, places where the earth has given way. The mountain didn't change. Your perspective did. Oftentimes I think people are kind of like mountains, right? The farther away we are from them, the easier it is to believe that they're bigger, wiser, stronger, more certain, more evolved, more put together, or maybe even more special than they really are. It's not really because they're intentionally deceiving us, right? Well, maybe some people, right? But it's really because the distance naturally hides this complexity, right? So today I was thinking about talking, or you know, about why we actually put people on pedestals, why human beings have been doing it for thousands of years, what trauma, attachment, neuroscience, and culture have to do with it. And maybe most importantly, how we can learn to admire people without losing ourselves in the process. Because here's the deal: I don't think the goal is to stop respecting people. I think that the goal is to stop disappearing and making ourselves smaller. And those are very different things. So I think most of us can identify at least one person we've put on a pedestal. Maybe it was a parent, right? Maybe it was a partner, maybe it was a therapist, maybe it was a spiritual teacher, a celebrity, political leader, maybe an author whose words changed your life. Maybe a public speaker who seemed to have maybe all the answers, right? Maybe it was someone on social media who appeared to be living the life that you wished you had. At some point, these things, these people have become larger than life. Their opinions mattered more, their approval mattered more, their criticism hurt more, their choices carried unusual weight. And what's really fascinating is that this is not a sign of weakness. It's actually a very, very human response. Our brain is constantly trying to make sense of the world, right? So this is often described as prediction machines, like the brain is often described as a prediction machine, right? So its job is to reduce uncertainty, to identify patterns, to increase safety, to figure out what matters and what doesn't, right? Very pattern-oriented. And uncertainty is super uncomfortable. So if you've ever stood at like a some sort of crossroads in your life, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Maybe a difficult relationship, maybe a career change, maybe a health issue, maybe a spiritual crisis, a major loss, a season where you don't know what's coming next. Uncertainty can actually feel so exhausting. And when we're uncertain, we naturally become drawn toward people who appear certain, right? People who are confident in themselves or appear to be confident. It's almost like being lost in a forest. Imagine you've been wandering for hours, you don't know where you're going, you're tired, the light is fading. Then all of a sudden you see someone confidently walking down a path. They look like they know exactly where they're headed. How many of us would immediately feel relief? How many of us would think, oh, finally, somebody knows, right? The interesting thing is that we don't actually know if they know where they're going. We only know they look like they do. But confidence itself can become calming because certainty feels safe. And I think sometimes we confuse certainty with wisdom. At least I have, right? Sometimes we confuse confidence with competence. Sometimes we confuse charisma with truth. It's really not because we're foolish, it's because we are human beings and this is how we function. History is filled with examples of this. Entire nations have elevated leaders, religions have elevated teachers, communities have elevated speakers, cultures have elevated celebrities. And if we're being honest, many of us have elevated people in our personal lives too. There's something deeply comforting about believing somebody has it figured out. But the reality is that no one gets out of being human. No one, not the celebrity, not the therapist, not the healer, not the politician, not the spiritual teacher, not the person with a million followers, not the person who wrote the life-changing book, not the person standing on stage, nobody. And yet we keep looking for exceptions. I think part of this kind of begins in childhood. As children, our caregivers really do seem larger than life. Think about it, to a five-year-old, parents know everything. Or at least that's how it appears. They control food, safety, transportation, rules, protection, belonging. The child naturally looks upward. And this makes perfect sense because attachment is a survival mechanism. So some researchers, like I've mentioned him before, John Bowby, right, showed that human beings are wired to seek attachment figures when distressed. Children instinctively orient towards someone who appears bigger, stronger, wiser, and capable of helping them survive. The problem is that sometimes this pattern doesn't fully update, especially if a childhood, or especially if this childhood involved instability or criticism, neglect, unpredictability, or even emotional inconsistency. Because children in those environments often become hyper-aware of other people. They learn to monitor, observe, adapt, please, predict, read the room, figure out what everyone else needs. And I guess over time they can become extraordinarily skilled at understanding others while becoming disconnected from themselves. They trust other people's perceptions more than their own, other people's emotions more than their own, other people's needs more than their own. Right? And that pattern can quietly continue into adulthood. The attachment figure simply changes. Instead of a parent, it becomes a partner, or a boss, or a therapist, or a spiritual teacher, or maybe an influencer, a celebrity, an expert. The faces change, the pattern stays. One of my favorite ways to think about this is through the image of a flashlight. Imagine standing in a really dark room. You have a flashlight and you shine it on someone. But the beam only illuminates one small section. Maybe their intelligence, maybe their confidence, maybe their beauty, maybe their spirituality, maybe their success. Because that's all you can see. Your brain starts filling in the blanks. You unconsciously assume the rest of the person is just as polished as the part that you're looking at. Then one day the lights come on, and suddenly you see the whole picture, the whole person, the fears, the insecurities, the blind spots, the contradictions, the unfinished healing, the humanity. The person didn't change, the lighting changed. And I think that's why taking people off pedestals can feel so shocking, because often we believe we're discovering something new when really we're just seeing more. Carl Jung had a fascinating perspective on this. He believed that human beings project parts of themselves onto others. Sometimes the qualities we admire most are qualities that exist within us, but have not yet been fully claimed. Think about that for a moment. Have you ever met someone and been completely captivated with their confidence or their courage or their authenticity or their wisdom? What if part of the reason you're drawn to it is because your own system recognizes something familiar? And maybe it's not like the familiar because you already express it. Familiar because the seed exists within you, too. I always think of this like standing in an art museum. You walk through hundreds of paintings. Most are nice, some are interesting. Then suddenly one stops you in your tracks, right? You feel something, maybe emotion, wonder, recognition. The painting didn't create that feeling. The painting revealed that feeling. The feeling was already there. And I think some people sometimes work the same way. The qualities we admire can become mirrors for us. Not proof that someone else possesses something magical, but clues about what is trying to emerge within us. But we get confused, right? So now let's talk about social media for a second. Because if there was ever a machine designed to encourage pedestal building, guess what it is? This, right? Imagine trying to understand an entire novel by reading only the highlighted sentences. You would miss the confusion, the mistakes, the failures, the boring chapters, the plot twists, the contradictions. And yet that's what we do online a lot of times. We see someone's best moments, their insights, their accomplishments, their polished photographs, right? Their breakthroughs, their victories. And then we compare that highlight reel to our full behind the scenes experience. It's just an impossible comparison. We compare their spotlight to our entire reality. And then we wonder why we feel inadequate. One of the things I find most interesting is that pedestal building often intensifies during periods of uncertainty. Think about a person drowning in the ocean. They're exhausted, panicked, overwhelmed, searching for something solid. When a boat appears, they don't stop to evaluate every detail about the boat. They grab on. Sometimes we become so conf so focused on that boat that we forget that we actually can swim. And that might be one of the deepest lessons hidden inside this entire conversation. Because the opposite of pedestal building is not isolation, it's not cynicism, it's not deciding that nobody has anything valuable to offer. It's not refusing guidance. It's not even becoming defensive and independent. The opposite of pedestal building is self-trust. It's remembering that wisdom can exist in others and in you. It's remembering that someone can inspire you without becoming your authority. It's remembering that someone can teach you without becoming responsible for your identity. It's remembering that you can learn from people while remaining connected to yourself. So how do we shift this then? Well, I think it starts with just a simple question, right? Whenever someone feels unusually important, ask yourself, what am I hoping this person will give me? Certainty, safety, worth, belonging, direction, validation, permission, maybe love. Because often the answer reveals something important, not about them, but about you. About a need that deserves attention, a wound that deserves care, a part of yourself that's waiting to be reclaimed. And then maybe ask, how can I begin developing this within myself? How can I become a source of safety for myself? How can I strengthen my own discernment? How can I trust or learn to trust my own voice? How can I become more connected to my own inner authority? Because ultimately, I don't think healing is about knocking people off pedestals. It's about building your own ground. When you have solid ground beneath your feet, you don't need to tear anybody down. You don't need to prove they're flawed. You don't need to become disillusioned. You simply stop looking up all the time. You begin meeting people eye to eye. You notice that you're just as important as they are. And that changes everything because that's where real relationships live. Not above or below, beside human to human, soul to soul, person to person. And maybe that's the gift hidden inside every shattered pedestal. Not discovering that someone else was never worthy, but maybe discovering that you were never lesser. Okay. Thank you so much for being here with me today. And if you've been taking someone off a pedestal lately, be gentle with yourself. You may be grieving an illusion, but you may also be reclaiming something far more valuable. Your own voice, your own wisdom, your own ground beneath your feet. And from there you might finally be able to see others clearly. And yourself clearly too. Alright, until next time. Take care of yourselves and I will talk to you again soon. Bye.