“When you say yes to others, make sure you aren’t saying no to yourself.”
Paulo Coehlo
People-pleasing is a natural phenomenon that begins in the days of early youth, during that time we want to participate in activities that our peers are participating in. We want to wear what our peers are wearing, we use terms and phrases that we hear our peers using, and we thrive on their approval. This is the point at which humans become more desperate to fit in.
It is a period that defines adaptive and maladaptive attitudes, as well as how we relate to others and how much we value ourselves. I can see where my maladaptive coping mechanisms originated when I think back on my adolescent years. I really didn’t belong, and I was desperate for friendship, attention, and camaraderie.
Due to my lonely school life and abusive home life, as the oldest of eight children, I had a skewed perception of myself based on how other people treated me, which shaped my adult sense of self-worth. My desperation for the things I missed out on during my adolescence manifested into accepting various forms of toxicity and abuse, because I was still longing for external love and acceptance.
Before I came to the realization that I was a people-pleaser, I never thought of myself as such. Yet I discovered that in romantic relationships, this was the case. During the years of pursuing different paths in attempt to find love and self-worth, I ultimately found myself prioritizing the needs of others over my own. Looking back, I actually can’t recall a time when I didn’t have to bravely end a relationship because of trauma in some form.
I used my empathic nature as an excuse to allow myself to be treated poorly, which changed aspects of my personality. People pleasing took away what I really wanted for my life, leaving empty spaces where I didn’t know who I was. I leaned on the thought that if something was ‘predictable’ it was also it was also manageable and safer than dealing with the loneliness that single-hood brings. If it was familiar, it was safe. Therefore I found it easy to deal with a partner’s volatility, controlling ways, and abuse. Being a lesser person was just another part of life.
Realizing that there is growth in discomfort helped me to love myself, but also to actually like myself. The process of trying to prove worthiness is exhausting and many times we end up falling short because people pleasing presents a restriction in growth of the mind, and of the self.
Tina Turner highlighted that external love has nothing to do with our self worth, through one of my favorite songs. Every time I play ‘Whats Love Got to do with It’ I smile to myself because I am proud of how far I have come in my journey. Disposing relationships that only served the other person and ridding myself of the need for external validation was a major accomplishment. Time and experience taught me that ‘love’ is simply not enough to sustain any relationship, nor should it be a reason to continue to endure abuse. In addition, there must be an element of safety, as well as mutual trust, healthy communication, goals and respect. Setting boundaries was something that I had to learn the hard way.
I had to take a step back from allowing myself to shrink for the betterment of someone else. I had to look at the situation from the outside and follow the advice that I would have given to someone else.
You define your self-worth, based on who you really are, your own ethics, core beliefs and morals, as you continue to grow into the person that you want to be! Never allow someone else to shape you and cause you to endure things that you will later on in life need to heal from.
The process of eliminating the obstacle of people pleasing is a different journey for each person. I used various methods of elimination. First I thought heavily on The Noble Eightfold Path, in Buddhism, it is known to be the way to eliminate suffering. People pleasing was a big source of suffering for me.
In order to eliminate my suffering I had to starve off the parts of me that desired toxic connections. I chose to remove dating from my life, completely, which was something I have never in my adult life done. This allowed me to start a true and authentic healing process, and to also discover that I really didn’t need someone else’s approval to simply exist. I learned to trust the parts of me that wanted to heal.
To cut the blood supply off from certain desires meant that eventually, those desires would wilt away and fall off. It wasn’t an easy process but the road to recovery rarely is. The loneliness came and brought with it, tears of past pain. Desperation and feeling sorry for myself were all like plagues that I had to fight through, but when the struggle was over, it was truly over!
When you allow someone else to determine your self worth, you are saying that it’s ok to be disrespected, it’s ok to be abused either physically, mentally, verbally, emotionally or financially. Allowing someone else to establish your boundaries says it’s ok to place me inside this dark box where I have no choices and the only rules that apply are their rules.
In order to yield yourself a life of abundant peace and joy, you have to accept yourself for who you are vs. who someone else forces you to be. When we allow others to define our self-worth we turn on autopilot and coast our way through life waisting time that we will never be able to recoup. Self acceptance paves the way for who you want to be.
Final thought: realize that being here is a gift. Allow yourself to give back to the blessing of existence by loving your inner self and living your life to the fullest. We are all extraordinary in our own way. Be unapologetically authentic in your extraordinariness. Peace, joy and the freedom of choice are divine rights that we should never allow ourselves to be robbed of. Allowing someone else to dim your light is simply not an option today, tomorrow, or anytime in the foreseeable future.
Self Cultivation 