Let's talk about people pleasing is nothing more than a unhealthy pattern and let me tell you why. Somewhere in our childhood. We thought that we have to earn love. That we have to do something in order to be loved and to behave to please others. That was basically our form of earning love, especially when our parents were not consistent with meeting our needs, or were inconsistent with affection and behavior towards us. It’s not to say they were wrong, they did their best to share love with us they knew and what they were taught by their parents. They loved us in the best way that they could.
So from that point we have created a certain attachment, the attachment could be an anxious or avoidant. (I’d recommend to do your own research on these because knowing about these will help you in your own relationships big time.) People pleasers also lack boundaries and as a recovering people pleaser I sure speak from experience and I am still working with boundaries myself.
So if you ever find yourself like myself and a place where you noticed a slight energy shift in somebody's way of responding or somebody's way of being towards you suddenly may think of what have i done wrong and almost even feel guilty for it.
And again, this is a pattern that we carry from our past because we thought that we were responsible for how other people feel, and we feel like it's our responsibility to make that person feel better. But that is unhealthy pattern. And that is not the way it is. We are not responsible for how people feel because people have their own things going on which is not all about us.
It's not our fault that a person is acting differently to what we are used to and it's not our responsibility to make this person feel good and being okay around us. And that's what people pleasing is. It can look like this. We go and we say, let me help you with that or what can i do to make you feel better? Can I offer you something? Can i cook for you? Can i give you a massage? Can i take you out? Especially if the other person or people withdraw from us. It will also show up in ways where you do not respect your own boundaries or don’t even have any because we were use to mould ourselves around others to fit in, meaning doing what other people are doing and not really making our own decision at the time. Not knowing what our own needs at the time because we never felt our needs were important so we go around not having any or not being aware of them.
So as you may be more aware of it now. What can you do? Lean more into your own needs in best way you can and relearn that you do not need to earn love. Ask Ask Ask.
What do I need right now? Is this something I really want to do? Why I am I doing what I am doing right now? What do I do that I don’t really want to do?
These few questions will give you little idea about where you are at and hopefully guide you towards understanding what you allowing in your life and how healthy is it for you. You are not here to sacrifice yourself to anything.
If you need more insights on how to develop healthy boundaries or find out the core of this behaviour or learn to navigate that going forward you can get in touch bellow to book private session to work. Where we go through this process together leaving you feel better about yourself and having more insights, ideas and tools to support you. Link bellow
Love Lilu xx
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