Permission to stop people-pleasing
People pleasing, at its most impactful, is a trauma response.
It's part of the fight, flight, freeze or fawn response to stress, pain, and traumatic experiences. It's also something that happens because of your upbringing or your religious beliefs or even a set of situations you've found yourself in with friends or at school or at your workplace where a high value was placed on being good and well behaved and agreeable.
Growing up, a story that circulated Sunday School and Youth Group on the 'reg' was the one where Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan River, and a voice from heaven bellowed down and said:
"This is my son, in whom I am
WELL PLEASED (capitalised for emphasis)."
And then there was this line from one of Jesus' parables where the King said to the servant:
"Well done my good and faithful servant…"
And I remember being a little girl and dreaming of having that said to me: 'I am well pleased with you, well done good and faithful servant.'
I do believe that toxic theology and faith communities built on exclusion and rigid dogma end up (subconsciously or not) being environments that applaud people-pleasing as a virtue, creating toxic loops of co-dependency (more on that in a future edition).
Listen, hear me well, hear me right from the centre of your being:
It is not your job to please God.
God is not an energy, or an entity, who's highest goal is to be pleased instead of being not pleased.
It's not on you.
I don't know who needs to hear this today, but the salvation of the world, and even your neighbour, does not rest on your shoulders.
People-pleasing is not a virtue. It's a trauma response. (No wonder we work ourselves to the bone to please God when we're taught to be so afraid of God.) We do it to create safety for ourselves by mitigating people's reactions with our good, agreeable behaviour.
We do it to gain acceptance and belonging. We do it because sometimes we have done it for so long, it's been programmed so deeply in us that we are here to please and to make people happy and to do a good job, that we don't know how to find love and belong and purpose any other way.
There is another way. And it will take you coming out from behind the wall of people-pleasing; to find the courage to stop hiding behind making other people happy, to resist creating safety by meeting everybody else's needs at the expense of your own so that they stay happy with you.
Flow and alignment, grace and compassion, connection and purpose, and it's these things that will give you what you're trying to find behind the wall of people-pleasing.
To dismantle the wall of people-pleasing that you hide behind, start here: start small, one step at a time. Grace. Mercy. You get to practice this; it's not something that needs your perfection to get moving.
Instead of using your energy to find acceptance in the praise from others, take that time instead to connect to who you are, what you want, and what you need. You might try meditation, journaling, prayer, any kind of practice to connect to this sense within you about what makes you come alive and how you can use that to build connection and belonging.
Make friends with boundaries, especially the ones you make with yourself like, "I will say no, I will speak up, I will accept and allow my needs and graciously meet them."
On the other side of hiding behind people-pleasing is a world full of authentic connection.
Not everyone will connect with you, and that is OK. You don't need everyone. You only need those who connect with you for you, and you, for them.
Mindful Prompt: People-pleasing is a trauma response, not a virtue. It is not your job to please God. It is your good and holy work to find where you flow, authentically and truly, and allow yourself the space you take up.
From my upcoming series, "On The Other Side of Hiding" this week with a subscription in the App.
Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco
