Healing the Habit of People Pleasing
People pleasing. It’s like the little sister/brother of co-dependency. Not a full-blown clinical diagnosis but it still can be disruptive in our lives. Its impact can range from annoyance and irritation to depletion and exhaustion.
People pleasing is a habit. A learned pattern. At some point, (usually) in our young lives, we decided it was unsafe or unproductive to give voice to our needs, to actively follow through with compromise or full commitment in meeting our needs, to clarify our expectations to others and to continue the practice asserting our personal power with the art of saying “no”.
As adults, people pleasing can sneak out in subtle ways, such as, agreeing to meet at an undesirable restaurant to avoid creating tension or prolong the discussion with friends or apologizing to another shopper for bumping carts despite the other shopper pushing their cart into the aisle you were standing still in looking for sriracha (true story).
People pleasing can also emerge in more disruptive ways, such as, agreeing to take on another project at work because the supervisor has directly asked you—despite already feeling overwhelmed and unable to complete other existing projects without working 12-14 hour work days or being in an active relationship with a partner, but accepting all the responsibilities of work, chores, errands, transportation, childcare for the household—leaving no time or energy for personal time to relax, restore and enjoy hobbies.
Sometimes those acts of giving balance out in our favor as well. We could be sacrificing our needs in the short term out of love, care, or concern. A partner who recently had surgery, may need to focus on their physical needs and we are willing to pick up the slack to support their healing. We could know that there is a “payoff” in our near future and consciously make a decision to compromise knowing it will balance out. For example, if I take on this new project and hit it out of the park it will lead to a well-deserved promotion, a fat raise, and that big corner office.
However, over time, as a consistent pattern of how we relate to others; it starts to negatively impact us. Relationships don’t feel balanced or fulfilling, we begin to feel the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual effects of stress leading to overwhelm, exhaustion, and burnout, we feel frustrated and resentful, we begin to feel unheard, unseen, and our needs go unmet, and our self-esteem can tank and leading us to struggling even more with becoming emotionally dependent on others.
People pleasing becomes problematic when we do not hold ourselves and others accountable for negative or unrealistic expectations or behaviors, when we deny our own needs, when we have unhealthy boundaries, and lack skills for negotiating and creating compromise for win-win outcomes.
But remember it’s a learned pattern. We can take our personal power back and begin to unravel our people pleasing habit.
It is completely within us to change.
It is never too late to learn and practice new healthier, more supportive, habits and patterns for engaging with people in our lives.
What will life look like when we begin to heal our habit of people pleasing?
Without people pleasing, we can lead more fulfilling and joyful lives. We actively and consciously engage in healthier and supportive patterns in which:
We recognize our own needs,
We honor and meet our own needs,
We recognize that rescuing others does not actually help the other person or help ourselves,
We understand the difference between an act of love versus an act of people pleasing,
We create a practice of returning to a natural state of inner peace,
We are guided by our intuition to make choices that are fully supportive of ourselves and our needs.
These new habits and patterns leave us feeling safe, whole, and protected.
Ready to get started on unraveling the habit of people pleasing?
Here are 3 steps to beginning to unravel people pleasing in your life:
1) Practice returning to your center.
With people pleasing, often we are emotionally triggered and react to control external situations and/ or the needs of others. We completely ignore our own needs in those moments. Typically, due to the stress activation, our brain tells us we should be doing something for others to navigate out of the situation. But truly, we need to shift into soothing our fears and worries. Starting with calming the body.
Begin a practice of quiet and calm. Slow down. Listen, sense, and feel what you are needing in moments throughout the day.
This could be through 3-5 minutes of deep breathing or meditation.
Pausing and checking in with your emotions and thoughts throughout the day.
Or simply doing a body scan to see where you are holding tension. And ask yourself, “where is this tension from?”
Go within and reinforce for yourself that quiet, calm and in control of your emotions is empowering. Like building an inner fortress, brick by brick. It’s beginning to create a buffer from hurtful thoughts and unrealistic expectations.
When you are in control of your emotions, you can begin to connect with your intuition for guidance. The more you practice listening to your intuition, the easier it becomes to know (sense or feel) your personal best course of action. (More about this in #3)
People pleasing thoughts and daily patterns leave little room for calm. Busyness, saying yes to many things, trying to fix and solve problems for other people creates stress in our system.
Replace your old beliefs about busyness, agreeableness and fixing, with a new affirming thought: Each day I experience more safety and peace in my life.
2) Challenge and soothe the worry, doubt, and fear that keeps you stuck in the patterns of people pleasing.
Start recognizing the difference between healthy emotional safety and love versus unhealthy safety and love.
People pleasing creates so much tension. Begin the practice of allowing the negative emotions and thoughts to arise without judgement. Without criticism. Simply witnessing the tension that is created by people pleasing.
Practice recognizing the tension without impulsively acting on the tension.
Begin a new practice of sending love and to past events and experiences.
Send love and compassion to yourself.
It’s time to begin to untangle your belief of needing to do everything for everyone with the concepts of safety and love. See how they are different.
List ways when you have felt safe and experienced loved.
List ways you can create healthy experiences to show yourself love.
List ways you can create healthy safety through your choices and behaviors.
Replace old beliefs about emotional safety and love with new affirming thoughts: In every moment I deserve love. Each day I experience a deeply love and appreciation for myself. Each day I send myself unconditional love.
3) Begin practicing honoring your inner wisdom to reclaim your personal power.
People pleasing blocks our inner knowing and draws us away from meeting our needs. Over the years, we may have inadvertently created a practice of overriding or ignoring our intuition. However, when we listen to our intuition, we find that we can navigate relationships, events, and experiences in healthy and supportive way.
Ask yourself, why do I treat other’s needs, opinions, or requests as more important or holding more weight than my own. Always reflect without judgement or criticism of yourself.
List how it feels to trust your inner knowing.
Visualize how it would look and feel for future events to unfold in a way that supported ideal choices for yourself.
Anchor in the alignment of personal power with your ability to make decisions that honor your genuine self-expression, worth, and value.
Replace old beliefs about the value of your intuition with new affirming thoughts: When I make choices and decisions that are fully aligned with my intuition and inner wisdom, wonderful things unfold for me in my life.
Changing old habits and patterns take time. People pleasing may be an old habit or pattern, for years or even decades. Personal growth is definitely a process. Shifting away from people pleasing takes time. Remember to give yourself grace with the practice of unraveling people pleasing. Each day, practice replacing small moments of people pleasing with more supportive choices and actions until it becomes a new habit.
Wishing you strength and full access to your inner wisdom for releasing people pleasing habits so that you can thrive,
Mary
P.S. If you would like to hear this blog as a guided meditation, click HERE.
P.P.S. If you are struggling to break the habit of people pleasing, let’s connect so I can support you with new strategies to make sure you are recognizing and honoring your needs, building and holding healthy boundaries, and communicating with others in a productive way. www.riversjourneywellness.com or mary@riversjourneywellness.com
