Intuition and People Pleasing
This one is for the people pleasers, to share with you a practical context and intuitive guidance.
Whenever someone tells me they are a people pleaser, it is usually loaded with negativity, guilt or shame, because people pleasing is deemed to be a bad thing or something they should not do.
If people pleasing is doing something nice for someone else, whether it is to help them out, make them laugh or pay them a compliment, why on earth would people pleasing be so negative?
Because it is the frequency and scale of people pleasing that can tip us over the edge to make it something negative.
When we are pleasing people to the detriment of ourself or our personal responsibility, it is that tipping point that tells us something within us is not in balance.
It could be that sense of thinking someone knows more about a situation than you do and you bow to their ‘better judgement’ even though this may mean you compromise your values or beliefs.
Perhaps we do not want to rock the boat and cause conflict, so you go along with the other person.
Maybe it is because of lack of courage or self confidence to speak up or speak out, because others may make fun of us, reject us or ignore us.
Or it could be ‘martyr’ syndrome – look at me, I do everything for everyone else and nothing for myself. In this situation it is usually some kind of twisted recognition to be considered a hero or to feel more ‘worthy’ than others.
If you are people pleasing to the detriment of yourself you may think that you have to give up please pleasing, full stop. Cold turkey is not the answer.
The next step is that the next time you want to do something for someone, ask yourself, is this at detriment to myself? That detriment could take many forms and is personal to you. For example, if you agree to work extra hours does that have a detriment to your family life? Does it put your partner out because they have to pick up the kids so your partner needs someone to cover their work? The detriment can be about the knock on effect, such as in that example, or the detriment could be a feeling or emotion that is putting you out of balance. Agreeing to a certain action or task that you do not agree with and you know it is going to mean sleepless nights because you are going to worry about it.
Once you can perceive a detriment to people pleasing, you can then see the scale of it
Why would we stop wanting to please people or make them happy? It is a lovely thing to do. We just have to ensure that it sits within our level of personal responsibility.
If you are a people pleaser and would like support or to have a chat about this, you can call me on 07803 741396 or email at support@theintuitionconnection.com to start a conversation.
Love and Empowerment. Ruth