Ep #20: People Pleasing

I'm Mikki Gardner, and this is the Co-parenting with Confidence podcast, Episode Number 20: People Pleasing. [music] Welcome to Co-parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who wanna move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly wanna be. My name is Mikki Gardner, I'm a certified life and conscious parenting coach with my own personal dose of co-parenting experience. Throughout my co-parenting journey, I have learned to become confident in who I am as a woman and a mother, and I'm here to help you do the same. If you're ready to learn what it takes to become a great co-parent and an amazing example to your children, well, get ready and let's dive into today's episode. Welcome, friends, I'm so glad to be back here with you. In the last few episodes, we've been talking a lot about love, about self-love, boundaries, trust, and today I wanna talk about the other side of that conversation, about the plague that afflicts so many of us. And what is that plague? People pleasing. So why is this important to talk about amidst all of the other lovely topics of self-love and trust and boundaries? Because for so many of us, this is what stands between us and the love and the healthy boundaries that we really desire. So as I often do, I wanted to start with the definition, so I asked the Googles, what is people pleasing? So it says, a people pleaser is someone or something that pleases or wants to please people. Simple. Another definition is a person who has an emotional need to please often at the expense of his or her own needs or desires. So I don't know about you, but this one starts to hit a little bit of home for me. So there's a lot of ways that this shows up, and I'm gonna go through a few of them, but I see it in so many of my clients, right? After Divorce, after it feels like the rug has just been pulled right out from under you, and everything that you thought you knew is gone... So many of us have a tendency to go into people pleasing mode, why? Because we wanna be loved, we want affection, we wanna earn validation, and know that we're worthy. So, we start with people pleasing. So I see people pleasing often in so many of my clients. As moms post-divorce, it's not uncommon for us to want to please everyone around us, to wanna feel needed, to wanna feel loved. It's totally normal. I get that. And often, when we feel like our life has just been pulled right out from under us and we're trying to get our bearings again, it's so easy to go into just taking care of everyone else, making sure that our kids are okay. And I'm not saying that that's wrong in any way, absolutely not, but people-pleasing is really a plague when it is doing it at our own expense. There is taking care of people, and then there's taking care of them at our own expense. I bring it up here because it's so important to understand, because when we're doing it at our own expense, we are taking on other people's feelings, other people's needs that aren't ours to take on, and we end up bitter, angry, resentful and exhausted. So I wanted to go through a few things, a list of what people pleasing might look like in some people. And maybe you can relate to any of these. So some signs that you might be in people pleasing mode is, you want everyone to like you. It's painful for you when people don't like you, or you apologize a lot, we call it over apologizing. Maybe you crave validation, you do things over and over, you just crave validation. Maybe you feel guilty or mean when you set boundaries, maybe you're afraid of or avoid conflict, maybe you've always been the "good girl," the rule follower, maybe you think self-care is optional, maybe you expect yourself to be perfect and hold yourself to the highest standard, maybe you're a fixer, you hate to see anyone hurt or afraid or sad, and you just wanna get in there and fix it. Maybe you put yourself last all the time and you don't even know how to ask for what you want, maybe you think your feelings and your needs and opinions and ideas aren't as important as other people, and maybe you find yourself really sensitive to criticism. Any of these can be signs that you may be stuck in people pleasing. And I know I can relate to a lot of these. So when we're stuck in people pleasing, we're literally robbing ourselves of time, of energy, of money and integrity, and I wanna talk about the first group of those, the time, energy and money. You know, I heard not that long ago, someone say that there's a difference between doing something to be loving and doing it to be loved. I don't know about you, but that hits so home for me, a little too close. Because if I'm being honest with myself, a lot of my "helping" is really just an effort to be loved. And what is this? It's people pleasing. When we have that desperate need to be loved, and we're acting out of that all the time, we're trying to fill a hole inside of ourselves by getting it from other people, but it's not theirs to give, and so we're constantly on the hamster wheel of looking for more and more and more. Another way that we rob ourselves of time and energy and money is the need to impress. When we care more about what other people think, than what we think. What does this lead to? It leads to comparison, it leads to overdoing, it leads to exhaustion. I don't know how many of you have school-age kids, and maybe you... I remember the first couple of toddler play dates that we had, and we'd go to someone else's house, and I'd look around and maybe she had all organic snacks out and perfectly placed little Bento Boxes. For those of you that don't know what it is, it's like a small box with little sections of foods, and some of the moms have them perfectly organized with their fruit and their little vegetable, and their little protein and their little cheese, and all these little boxes for everyone. And I would find myself needing to impress, wanting to be that person, wanting to please the other people, and so I would go above and beyond to make sure that their opinion of me was the way that I wanted it to be, and this is people pleasing. It's putting myself and my needs on the back burner while trying to strive to impress, get validation and control how other people view me. Can you relate to that at all? The other way that we rob ourselves of time and energy and money when it comes to people pleasing, is this desperate need to prove ourselves. It's the hustling where we're trying to do all of the things all of the time. If we can just get all the things done, then we're gonna be approved of, then we're gonna be worthy. And what this does is just lead to over-committing, overdoing, overworking. But again, that black hole of insecurity can't be fixed this way, it only keeps us on that hamster wheel more and more and more. And when we do all of these things, when we're people pleasing all of the time, the only thing that we end up being sure of is that we're wasting our time, our energy and our money trying to be something for other people, and this creates separation from ourselves. And this leads us to the last category, and that's integrity. What do I mean by integrity? I define integrity as a state of wholeness, of alignment. It is when we are in this state of integrity, of wholeness, that we can live our best life. People pleasing has no place in integrity. Why? Because the truth is that people pleasing is lying, and lying is people pleasing. When we do something we don't wanna do, and then we say we love it with a smile on our face, we're lying. When we change ourself and who we are or what we look like to seek approval, it's lying. When we hide our opinion just to keep the peace, it's lying. This might sound harsh, but it's the truth, and when I say lying, it's not being honest. I know that often, we, especially as moms and divorced moms, wanna make sure that everyone sees us as okay, as happy, as doing great, not needing any help. But that's not true. Some days are better than others, and some days, it's okay to need help. But when we're constantly putting on the brave face, constantly saying, "No, I'm good, I'm fine, I don't need anything," just so that we cannot be worried about what other people will think about us, that's people pleasing. That's lying. And if I'm being completely honest with you, people pleasing is an easier way of life. It is. It's so much easier to develop and stay in relationships that are on the surface, that aren't vulnerable and raw and honest, but it is gut-wrenching long-term inside of you, personally, but it's certainly easier socially, because when you tell people what they wanna hear and then have them respond the way you want to, it makes life a lot easier. But that isn't true for you, and it creates a disconnect. When we're lying about who we are and not loving ourselves where we are and with what we have going on, that's lying, and that's people pleasing. And people pleasing is loving at our own expense, and that's just not love. It's not love for you, and it's not love for the other person. So where does it even all begin? Where does it come from? Well, people pleasing is a learned behavior, and it takes years and years of training. [chuckle] It sounds like an Olympic sport, doesn't it? It kind of is, some of us can... If there were an Olympic sport of people pleasing, we'd get a gold medal, and I actually might be one of them. But it's just not a switch that we can just turn off. It's far too ingrained. And so we wanna understand, where did it come from? Well, like any other learned behavior, we soak it up over time, and people pleasing starts often when we're very, very young. Before the age of seven, we're like sponges. You hear that all the time, little kids are like sponges. But before the age of seven, the majority of our brain waves are in the theta state, and that is a very low state, it's very open. This is where hypnosis happens, this is data waves you pass through on your way to sleep, so you're very susceptible to other things, you're very open, you can take things in, it's very suggestive. And so with these low brain waves during this time under seven, we're taking in everything in our environment, we're looking around. And very quickly, we pick up on when we do certain things, we get rewarded, and when we do other things, there may be pain involved. Pain emotionally, whether it's distance, punishment, whatever it might be. But what we do is we start to look outside of ourselves more and more and more to figure out what's good, what's acceptable. And then when we figure it out, we do more of it. And this is just the breeding ground for where people pleasing comes later on, because when we're not able to filter what feels good, what feels authentic to us, and we just start doing and conforming, this can be a dangerous place. You know, for those of us who grow up in an environment where we're allowed to be ourself, and it's very open and welcoming, the people pleasing may not take such an entrenched version in our lives. But for so many of us we're really taught to look outside of ourselves for what is good and what is acceptable. And it's not anyone's fault, we just sort of pick this stuff up. But what happens is when we're constantly looking outside of ourselves for what's good, when we start to have this belief that we can do certain things to control how other people think about us, this is the breeding ground for people pleasing. Because ultimately, it creates a split, a split from our true self, who we are, and we start to create more of this false self, this people pleaser. And then over time, many of us lose the distinction of even knowing what our true voice is, understanding what is true for us, and we just live more and more and more in this people-pleasing mode, trying to change and do and be all the things to get the praise. And it makes sense, because we actually... Every time we people please, and we do something and someone enjoys it, we get a little hit of dopamine in our brain, and so like anything else, whether it's sugar or alcohol or anything else that gives us that hit of dopamine, we want more of it. So, we can really get addicted to that feeling of, If I do X, Y and Z, people will be happy with me. If people will be happy with me, I feel better. But it's really not this true sense of feeling good, what it really is is buying into the gigantic lie that we aren't enough as we are, that you need to earn love, that we need to accomplish things to be worthy. All of those are simply not true, and when we believe that, all we end up doing is thinking that we need to be different, that we need to act different, that we need to do things differently, that we need to earn love, and we lie, we sacrifice ourselves, we manipulate ourselves and others, we change, we expect others to conform for us to feel loved, to feel validated and to feel worthy. But sadly, instead of getting love and validation and worth, we just get further and further from ourself. So where do we even begin to stop people pleasing? Well, I'd like to say that it's not, again, not a switch that we just flip, but we have to start by just simply telling ourselves the truth about what we really want, about what we really think, about what we really feel. We look for the areas that we're out of alignment, where we're not being honest, and we don't necessarily change things right then, we just notice, we just start to pay attention. The thing is, the more you tell yourself the truth, the harder it gets to lie, it's just the way it works, and then you can start telling other people the truth and loving them even when they're not thrilled about it, but it starts with being really honest with you. Because ultimately, the opposite of people pleasing is honoring what you want for yourself, it's telling yourself the truth, and the other person, and then allowing that truth to be there with any response that might happen. And all the while, loving yourself and the other person. So it's always... I wanna give you some tangible ways to start stepping away from people pleasing, and again, this isn't something we're gonna do, just flip the switch or start changing everything in our life, no, it's just being willing to notice... To start paying attention. And there's four areas that I wanna talk to you about. The first is, the ways to overcome people-pleasing is to start taking care of yourself. Taking care of yourself is not selfish, it's actually selfish not to. And what do I mean by that? Well, it's selfish when we drain ourselves, when we exhaust ourselves, when we do all the things for everyone else to the point that we can't even function. How many times have you done all the things for all the people in the house, and then you are just exhausted, and they still want more, and you snap? That's people pleasing, that's not being honest about what you can and can't do, what you want to do and what you don't want to do, and you're doing it at your own expense. When we drain ourselves and we're running on thin ice, we end up just projecting and throwing it all over other people. That's selfish, right? The most selfless act that we can do is to actually take care of ourselves and honor ourselves, and to be honest. The second way that we wanna look at overcoming people-pleasing is to realize that not everyone's opinion matters. I know this is a strange one, but actually one of the greatest things that I ever learned is that other people's opinion of me is none of my business, because it's a reflection of them more than it's a reflection of me. Now listen, if I'm being a complete jerk out there, that's on me, right? But other people's opinion of me when I'm doing my best, when I'm trying, when I'm showing up the best that I can, and whatever they think of it, it's really more a reflection of them and the way that they think and their beliefs than it is necessarily about me. And so I wanna offer this to you that not everybody's opinion matters, and we have to actually define whose opinion that we wanna listen to. When we wanna stop people pleasing and start telling the truth, it's so important to start not asking other people's opinion first, but asking yourself first, what do you think? What matters to you? And then if you're genuinely interested, you can take in someone else's opinion. But we have to understand that other people's opinions are theirs, and our opinion is ours, and we focus on what we can control, which is ours. The third area that you wanna look at when we're looking at people-pleasing is understanding that healthy conflict can actually improve relationships. Shocking, I know. [chuckle] I did an episode a while back on conflict, and if conflict is something you struggle with, I invite you to listen to that episode. But the thing is, conflict is completely normal. I mean, honestly, it is. Whenever we're in relationship, there's going to be conflict, and it's okay that other people are uncomfortable when we're having conflict. It's not ours to fix, it's not ours to change, and sometimes we have to allow that uncomfortable-ness to be there in order to create change. You know, I'm always telling clients that sometimes to get to the other side of the river, to the side that we wanna be on, we have to be willing to rock the boat. As a people pleaser, this can be really hard when you don't want people to be unhappy with you, or you don't want other people to have big feelings. But it's totally normal, and their feelings are theirs to deal with. We can't avoid conflict and we can't stop it, so it's more about learning to understand it. And another little sneaky way that this comes in with people pleasing I've noticed, certainly in my own life, but with clients, how many times has one of your children walked in and you're clearly upset, maybe there's something going on with your ex, maybe you're having a hard time in a relationship, whatever it is. But they say, "Are you okay?" "Yep, mm-hmm, fine, all good". When we do that, we actually, A, are lying to them. But you know what it teaches them? That we can't be trusted, because they see on our face that we're not okay, but our words are telling them otherwise. It creates confusion for them. They don't understand it, they start to think that any kind of conflict or feelings are bad. And so instead, I wanna offer that sometimes, it's really important to just be honest, to say, "You know what? I'm having a really hard time with X, Y, Z," or, "You know what? I'm having a little bit of confusion around something, and it's just taking me a minute to process." But just being honest instead of saying, "I'm fine, it's all good, no problem." Because it creates a disconnect and a distrust within themselves because they can clearly see that something's wrong, but then they're being told it's not, so they're like, "Oh, maybe I'm wrong." We don't wanna do that to them. And then it creates distrust with us because they know we're not being honest. And the fourth one is my favorite for people pleasing. And this is from Byron Katie's work. I know I've mentioned her a lot, because her work is really, really powerful. But there are four words that she says. No, probably five. [chuckle] The most powerful sentence in the English language, I love you, and no. This is such a beautiful sentence, because sometimes when we very much wanna be loved and we want the person to love us and we really don't want to create those feelings, but we need to honor what's true for us and not do something, we just simply say, "I love you, and no." And we leave it at that. It's a complete sentence. It's a complete story. It's done. So that's our show for today. And I hope that I've given you some ideas on different ways to find out, are you people pleasing? Are there areas that you need to be more honest with yourself? Are there areas you need to be more honest with others? You are such an influence in your life, in your family's lives, in your community's life, and how do you wanna be showing up? Do you wanna do it from a place of love, and from a place of strength and truth, or from a place of people pleasing at your own expense? Because we all know when we people please too much, we end up bitter, resentful, angry, exhausted, and usually vomiting it all over other people. But there is a different way, another way to do it, and that's just by starting to notice and be more aware of the areas that you maybe aren't in alignment, aren't being completely truthful, and just starting to become aware and allowing those things to be there, and telling yourself the truth. Because the more times you tell the truth, the harder and harder it gets to people please. And one last thing that I wanna ask before we go, is that if you're receiving value from this free podcast, I would be ever so grateful if you would rate and review the show. It helps me more than you know, because it helps me deliver the content that you're interested in when you rate and review it, but it also helps more women find the show so that we can create more peace, more alignment in this world for us and for our kiddos. And if you're interested in finding out about upcoming workshops or working with me, please feel free to go over to www.mikkigardener.com and sign up for my newsletter, and make sure that you're in the know for any of those free upcoming events. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. I'm so grateful that we're here together, and I'll see you next week. In the meantime, take great care of you. [music] Thanks for listening to Co-parenting with Confidence. If you want more information or resources from this podcast, visit co-parentingwithconfidence.com. I'll see you next week.