Stop People Pleasing
Speaker 0: Hello there. Do you ever have a day where you just feel so good? Like, you're like, I'm doing so good at life. I feel like myself, I feel like I'm being authentic, I feel like I'm kind of getting what I want and presenting my self in the way that I wanna present myself, do you ever have those days? I'm having one of those days.
And I thought I'd let you know. And if you're not having one of those days, that's okay too because not all days are like that. The reason I do this podcast is so that you can have more days where you feel like you're getting what you want out of your life, which is why my friend, today we have to talk about the people pleasing. It's very serious because people pleasing is becoming an epidemic. And we have to just stop stop.
We have to just stop people pleasing. So today, I'm gonna talk to you about what what is people pleasing? What am I talking about? And what is people pleasing on, like, the level of mental health? What's the impact of people pleasing.
And then, of course, at the end of the podcast, I'll give you some little simple instructions to start working on it. So if you're one of these people that really likes to help other people have a good experience in life. I see you friend. I have been you. Okay?
And let's talk about this because there's a lot more to it than meets the eye. So people pleasing. People pleasing is a response from our past. And what we do is we try to maneuver life so that other people are not pissed off at us so that other people have no room to criticize us and so that we feel good because we feel like we're contributing to something positive. Right?
We feel like with our behavior, we're really impacting people positive. We're helping out, you know, by making them happy with this. And in the process, It's really difficult because sometimes it's way harder to make people happy with us then we think it's gonna be. Right? So here's the just straightforward truth.
Because, you know, I just like to tell you just get to the point. Just tell me what it is. People pleasing is a trauma response. It's a response to the way things were difficult when we were growing up. And, you know, I use the word trauma and people don't like that word and I get it.
But it's just a really good word to describe all the kind of hard things and the sort of hard things and the really hard things that happened to us when we were growing up, whether it was just a mean teacher that you could never please. But we're always trying. Right? Because children, they want to do well. They want the adults in life to be happy with them.
Right? Or it could be a response to deeper stuff. Like difficult family relationships. You know, sometimes when kids grow up in alcoholism, for sample, which I think so many people can relate to. It's kind of a thing.
Right? When we grow up in alcoholic homes, It's like the alcoholics never really present and children understand what presence is And so we feel that. We feel that the adult who's supposed to be taking care of us and supposed to be with us and that we really look to for support and guidance in our life is nowhere to be found. And so we try to figure out what we can do as a child to help them feel better, be more present, be happy with us, not experience, negative emotion. Right?
Because there are family dynamics and relationship dynamics that kind of train us to behave, to be good. To be pleasing to others, to people please. Right? And I guess what I wanna say about people pleasing as a response to the past is that the way that you behaved to please adults when you were a kid, it worked then, but it doesn't really work in adult relationships. You know?
It's like people that grow up in homes where the parents are like never happy enough. Right? There's a lot of criticism for whatever reason. That's the parents junk. But like kids have to cope with that somehow.
Of course, they do. And so You know, I always think it's really helpful to just approach your story and your past and your you know, your idea of what's functional and what's dysfunctional. I just I just think it's really helpful to be kind. And to understand that kids aren't adults. Children are very childish.
They have child brain And remember, our brain is not all the way formed. So the experiences that we're having in our life It's like those are the programs that we run on. So this is how we get to people pleasing because in the past, in one framework or another, it was super helpful to try to help other people feel good. To be helpful, to be good. And so, well, it's totally maybe based in the past or maybe it's even based in, like, a recent relationship you have.
Maybe you're like, oh, right. Like, I had friends that were very demanding and would cause a big ruckus that they weren't pleased with me. You know, a lot of people pleasing is based in other people's responses to when they weren't pleased with you. Right? That's why we avoid conflict, friend, because, you know, We learn a lot about conflict growing up and whether it's an emotionally safe thing to do or not.
And so therefore and by the by, we get to people pleasing. We just get to start this behavior of saying yes and being good and doing the right thing all the time whether we want to or not. And I gotta tell you, As a therapist, what I see in my office is it is miserable. It is present day misery. Saying yes to all kinds of stuff.
You don't wanna be saying yes to and trying to make other people happy when really, like, that's actually not within your control. People pleasing. It's like, trying to make up for the past with our present behavior and believe me you I've been there and I've done that and I still do it. And I catch myself because here's the deal, it's disempowering. It's not helpful.
Right? It doesn't help you feel like you're living your life. It helps you feel like you're actually an accessory in a few other people's lives. It's an abandonment of yourself to say yes when you wanna say no and to fake it It's inauthentic, really, to not say, like, no, I actually don't wanna go. On that thing that sounds like you think it's fun and like because I don't think that's fun.
That's no fun, but it's authentic to say I love that you love to roller skate. I think it's awesome, but I don't enjoy it. And that's okay. I'll come and watch. That's authentic.
And it's more connecting than this kind of need to say yes or this need to sort of make other people feel comfortable. And so I think it's just really important to kind of just tell you what people pleasing is and tell you that it's not serving you. And then you can start to really recognize it showing up in your life. How will you recognize it? That's what people always ask me.
Well, how will I know if I'm people pleasing versus just being nice and being evolved in my life? Oh, you'll know the difference. And I think we have to talk about it from the body. You have to embody your own knowing. You have to know what you like and what you don't like.
Remember last week's episode on intuition, and finding resonance? Yeah. You know what you don't like. And so and you know what the nose are. When somebody's like, oh, who can bring cupcakes tomorrow?
And you're like, I will. And then your whole body goes, oh, no. I don't wanna do that. Or, like, come over to my house and hang out and you're, like, okay, I'll be there and then you realize, like, oh my god. I'm exhausted.
I don't have space for that, and I don't even really wanna do that. So you you can recognize people pleasing by watching for the following things, saying yes all the time. Even when you don't want to. Your resentment towards other people because they don't see everything you're doing for them. You wanna look for when you're functioning on other people's behalf, like people can get up and get their own glass of water.
It's nice to get somebody a glass of water. But what if you don't? Right? Are you functioning on someone else's behalf? Are you pretending, saying yes when really how you feel is no or pretending to like people.
That you just don't earn a good fit with. That vibes no good. Right? We do so much pretending you wanna look for exhaustion. Exhaustion with the human race is sometimes a good sign that we're doing too much people pleasing.
Also, there's not a lot of direct communication involved in people pleasing. There's a lot of kind of backdoor Assuming others' needs, assuming other people's feelings, thinking you know what people are thinking, Somebody said to me the other day, this person says they think that people think this. And I and I was like, okay. So that's not that's not a thing. Like, us thinking we know what other people think.
Is silly. That's us trying to figure out our environment so that we can navigate it easier. Right? Of course, recognize people pleasing when it shows up in your life. It's a strategy for getting validation.
So another thing to look for is, like, am I just looking to be seen here? And is there another way to do it? So here's how you stop people pleasing. Okay? And remember, personal growth projects take time.
They take patience and they take kindness with yourself and a little bit of grace because all change happens backwards. Meaning, we fowl it up about a thousand times before we go. Oh, this is where I need to do that thing Rebecca said. So what I want you to do is, like, pick three areas of your life. Where you know flat out, you're totally people pleasing.
And just have a sense of humor because It's like you came across people pleasing because you needed that as a coping skill. All that's happening now is you just don't need to do that anymore. Like grown ups don't need to do that. Kids sometimes do need to do that. It's a good survival skill, but grown ups in safe situations.
They don't need to do that. Right? We can just we can conduct our relationship other ways. What you wanna do is you wanna pick some areas of your life that you know you have been people pleasing. One good example is work.
Like, are you working too much? Do you have boundaries between your work life and your home life? Hello? Right? You need to.
Because if you think you're in relationship with the people in your life while you're checking your work email, you're not. It's disconnecting. And so there's something to be said for just like drawing some little lines of presence and boundaries around who you're doing what for. I know you want your boss to be happy with you. Right?
But what I want you to do is is pick three areas and then I want you to discuss this situation. With a person that's involved in one of these situations. So if you are having trouble with boundaries at work, maybe it's time to go and talk to your boss and say, you know what? I have been having a little bit of trouble. With my boundaries around my work.
And I'd like to let you know that I'm gonna be working on it. And what that might look like is that I'm probably just gonna work during my work hours. This is all it looks like. It's not saying you, you, you, you guys are always e mailing me after hours or you guys are always trying to get me to do stuff when it's not my work time. And no no no This is about you.
You keep it on the eye. You say, I have not had good boundaries. I am kind of I had a tendency to people, please, and I am gonna work on that. And I just want you to know that that's what you're gonna see in my behavior. Okay?
So you wanna pick three areas. And so if it's with your person, you're a significant person, the person that you live with maybe, or the person that you're dating, then you just say, hey, I just wanna let you know. I just have a tendency to over function. And I think I've been really stepping on your toes. And not allowing you to fully function for yourself.
So I'm gonna just take a step back and I'm gonna stop doing your laundry and I'm gonna stop clean it up after you, right, or whatever it is, people pleasing. And you want us you want to kind of, you know, like, just let people know because, like, they're gonna be, like, what what's your deal? Why are you bailing? Or why are you not carrying this responsibility that you've carried before? And so, like, if you just stop cold turkey, then you are gonna piss people off.
So you wanna talk about it. These conversations are hard, but they're not that hard when you practice. This a few times. Just be explicit in wow you're gonna change your behavior and so then that's the second step is like, okay, see where you're doing it. Pick three areas, have some conversations, like, I'm gonna work on this, and this is how.
Right? So be explicit about what you're gonna do differently. And then what you need to do is change your behavior. And that's really all it has to happen. And the way you do that is that before you answer any questions or emails or requests that people have of you.
I want you to stop. To stop. And I want you to walk away from it for a while. Just put it down for a bit.delay your answer and just slow way down. It's so funny.
We like get a text and we're like, oh my god. I gotta answer this right now. And we're all like tossed up. Like, oh my god. What's my answer?
What's my answer? Just slow down, friend. Put the phone down and walk away. Just slow it down. And then and then seek resonance.
What are your yeses and what are your nose? If a friend that's not actually somebody that you enjoy spending time with or that you don't have energy with for this week, wants to get dinner and they're texting you. Just take five minutes and just put the phone down. And think to yourself. Do you want to go and do this today?
Does this feel like something you want right now? Why would it be good? Why wouldn't it be good? And look for the resonance that we talked about last week and find your intuition. It's there.
It will show up for you if you practice this and then answer. Oh, right. And then the last step is know that you're gonna do it wrong. You're going to make mistakes here. You're gonna be like, wow.
It totally resonated for me to go over there. But then as soon as I got there, I didn't feel right. I was like, oh, what am I doing here? Yes, of course, that's gonna happen. This is a learning process.
Right? Because the instinct, the brain track is to say, yeah, I'm in. Yep, I can do it. I should want to, what's wrong with me if I don't, right? We get into all this dialogue.
You don't need to have all that dialogue. You need to embody the answers within you. That is so cheesy, but what I mean is like you need to look in your body for resonance, which means you can't come up with answers by thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking. Sometimes you gotta slow down and you have to feel the answer that's right for you. And that's the tricky part with people pleasing.
Is that sometimes we don't know what the answer is that's right for us. And so that's why we keep doing it. And the more you work with yourself and say, no, what do you really think? And then the more you're in situations and you feel like, oh, I don't this doesn't feel right. Then you'll know more for next time.
So mistakes will happen. Okay? And also, I just wanna tell you, you get to change your mind. Like, if you said you'd bring cupcakes and now you decided, what the hell was I thinking? I'm not bringing cup cakes?
I don't even know how to eat cupcakes. Guess what? You get to change your mind? I'm so happy about that. Let's exercise that, shall we be like, I don't know what I was thinking?
I'm so sorry that I said I would bring cupcakes because they didn't happen. You say no. You say no. Thank you. You say no.
I can't. You say no. I'm not into that. That's how you get rid of people pleasing. Okay.
I wish you all the luck in dealing with people pleasing because you gotta stop and I gotta stop. Because when we do it, we're inauthentic. And life feels like we're literally living for other people. And it doesn't feel good. Does it?
It's exhausting. Okay. So, well, I think people pleasing is an interesting topic, and I think we could talk for hours about it. And it is one of the things that I'm gonna be talking about in the Takeout Therapy Club, which I am working so hard behind the scenes for you, my friend, to create an experience that you can come every month and you can get this awesome chunk of information And just like on the podcast, you get this very streamlined action oriented personal growth plan. So I'm really excited about it, and I'm working hard on your behalf.
But not to people, please, but rather just because you know, it fills me up to help people better function in their life. And to be honest, like, It's not that hard to better function in life. All we have to do is be willing to be in a good relationship with ourselves to be accountable for our behavior and just start changing it. So I I will be right here with you. I'm over on my side doing my work too, so I'll see you next time.
