People pleasers are always pulled between what they want or need and what others want, need, or expect from them.
Once they have children, they get pulled from a new, third direction.
It feels shameful to admit you care so much about other people's opinions. So, you brush it off as kindness.
But here's why people-pleasing isn't kindness. And why it makes your life miserable while giving your kids bad lessons.
Have You Ever Heard of Sociotropy?
The Psychology Dictionary says sociotropy is:
a person's tendency to place an inordinate value on relationships over personal independence that will leave them vulnerable to depression in the response to a loss of relationships.
That's right, it's the term specialists use for people-pleasing.
According to Wikipedia, this is a personality trait. You care too much about keeping your relationships with others.
Go ahead and add your children to the equation. You have their best interest at heart. So making choices that serve them well without upsetting others is like walking on eggshells. Shells will always break.
You tell yourself you're being kind. In reality, you're overly concerned with pleasing others and earning their appreciation.
This isn't kindness. And it sure ain't kind to you. It's eating you up inside, making you take decisions that don't serve you well. It can traumatize you. And it makes a hell of emotional baggage to put on your child's shoulders.
Don't think for a second it's not as bad as it seems. I know it is, firsthand.
The Child With Pneumonia and the Auntie With Cancer
Within three days, my four-year-old progressed from a runny nose to pneumonia.
Around that time, a beloved family member (who has been fighting cancer for years) announced her visit to town.
I was the only relative with enough rooms in the house to host her. It was the default choice to have her stay with us.
The problems occurred when she started to plan meeting with all the other relatives in town, some of which were also just visiting.
Auntie with cancer can't walk for too long or travel back and forth all day. It made sense we'd host the family gathering.
But how can I put my little one just recovering from pneumonia in a room with over a dozen of other family members and risk him getting another virus that will make him ill once again, far too soon?
Letting everyone know we can't have them at our place has been… a process. I chose what was best for my son. And the auntie with cancer seemed understanding.
But watching everyone discussing potential alternatives was… another process.
As a people pleaser, you want to please everyone. You also worry about what everyone says and thinks. It makes you anxious, stressed, terribly unhappy, and unnecessarily worried.
Most importantly, it never stops. Not even when the people you don't please don't seem to be bothered.
You are always bothered.
Are You Sure You're Not a People Pleaser?
People pleasing is putting everyone else's needs over yours, regardless of the personal costs.
If you have it, chances are you:
- Avoid conflicts at all costs.
- Say yes even when you want to say no.
- Feel responsible for other people's feelings.
- Always seek validation or appraisal from other people.
- Apologize all the time, even for the least significant things.
- Suck up your feelings and never let others know when you're hurt.
- Have a hard time whenever someone is being upset or angry at you.
- Go with the flow, always agreeing with everyone or pretending to agree.
- End up burned out by the many things you need to do just to please others.
- Act like the people around you, desperately wanting to fit in and go with the grain.
Can't admit to yourself doing any or many of the above? Try to think about your past.
Were you raised to be nice and polite? Taught it's not OK to be selfish? Do you tiptoe around others, unable to be rude or insensitive to other people's needs and wants? If you put these teachings above anything else, you are a people pleaser.
And here's another direction to explore.
Do you have a history of maltreatment? Is pleasing others your coping mechanism? Are you afraid that upsetting others will make them reject you from their lives and you can't stand that thought? Again, you're a people pleaser. One with a serious abandonment wound.
Your Children Can Point Out That You're a People Pleaser
When you're responsible only for yourself, you can keep telling yourself all the excuses. That you want to be nice. Polite. Fit in. Help people.
But when you have children of your own, you're confronted with some big feelings. You can no longer ignore how you feel when you must choose in your child's best interest while possibly upsetting others.
Parenting forums and Facebook groups are full of parents who debate such situations:
Should I skip a family reunion because my baby won't have a good time?
Should I tell the doctor I don't agree with their no co-sleeping policy?
Should I confront my mother-in-law about the way she talks to my child?
Should I tell the teacher that my child doesn't respond well to her teaching methods?
Should I stand up and express my position against rewards and punishments at kindergarten?
And the list is endless.
Can you spot the patterns? No matter what words these questions use, the issue is: should I speak up about a matter that I know will upset others?
When it's just us, we can brush off such decisions easier. But when it's about our children, we can no longer sleep at night wondering how to proceed even about the slightest things.
Here comes the good news.
Being a Parent Forces You To Cure Yourself From People Pleasing
The things we do for our children…
Kids know how to reveal our scars, wounds, and flaws like no one else. The hardest part of parenting is repairing and reparenting ourselves.
Anyone who wants to parent their children free from intergenerational patterns and their own past traumas needs to fix themselves. Else, their children will end up broken in the same way as their parents.
So, being a parent forces you to cure from people pleasing. Because you don't want your children to go through the same agony for every single detail of their lives.
How do you do that?
For Every Effect, There's a Root Cause
"Finding the cause of evil is similar to finding remedy against it." — Vissarion Belinsky
First, you must realize why you act the way you do. Then, you can work on changing things around.
Some are people-pleasers because they have low self-esteem. They need external validation like air. And they think pleasing others will bring them that validation.
Some are chronic perfectionists. Again, it's something we inherit. And a perfectionist can't have others unhappy with them. They want everything to be perfect, including the things they can't control. So, they desperately try to please others, hoping to make those things out of their control, perfect.
Some are chronically insecure. Due to attachment issues in early childhood, they grew up insecure about themselves and about the people around them. They always fear they'll be rejected or abandoned. And always do things that might prevent that.
Some have the wrong idea that they can only be valued if they make themselves useful to others. And they do it at the cost of their happiness.
I can't tell you why you're a people pleaser. That's for you to find out. But I can tell you that finding out is the first step in your recovery.
To me, it had to do with my upbringing, which led to low self-esteem, which led to chronic insecurity, which pushed me into some toxic relationship where I desperately needed to stay before I found my way out.
I hope you'll find out what got you to it and start from there.
Meanwhile, here's what else you can try.
Stop Reacting and Learn How To Respond Instead
People-pleasers react to everyone's needs and requests. They do it in a sort of desperate way.
When you learn how to pause before you react, you might find the time and the strength to respond instead.
Enter emotional intelligence, a life-changing ability.
Emotional intelligence allows you to respond instead of reacting. It's how you sort out a lot of the crap in your life.
Regardless of the problems you're struggling with, the more you sharpen your emotional intelligence skills, the more you'll be able to live with yourself as opposed to living for others.
And so, being a parent forces you to cure yourself of being a people pleaser. The things we do for our children…
"There are places in the heart you don't even know exist until you love a child." — Anne Lamott
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