The Dark Side Of People Pleasing: Podcast #84

The desire to please people is different from "people-pleasing." One is a way we share love and spread kindness. The other is manipulative, controlling, and based on fear. There are many ways we can bring pleasure and joy into the lives of those we come into contact with. However, when we say or do what we think others want us to do and withhold our honest feelings, the results can be toxic to us and to our relationships.

Transcript

Welcome to Spiritual Psychology.

My name is Renée LeValley McKenna and I bring my 30-plus years as a recovering addict and ex-crazy person turned therapist and shamanic healer to bring you snackable teachings on spirituality,

Psychology,

And all things personal growth.

And today I want to talk about the dark side of people pleasing.

There's a difference between pleasing people and people pleasing.

From a healthy perspective our willingness and ability to be aware of other people's feelings,

Desires,

Needs,

And goals can be an important part of any relationship.

Whether it's your friends,

Your lover,

Your co-workers,

Or your family,

Making other people happy and comfortable can be a pleasant,

Joy creating experience.

Speaking and acting in ways that make other people feel good can be a way that we exchange love and spread goodwill.

We might please people or create pleasure for them through compliments or kind words,

Through giving gifts,

Large or small.

Bringing someone a cup of coffee in bed could be a gift.

Acts of service,

Where we might go out of our way to do something for someone we care about.

Our willingness to extend ourself,

Our time,

Our energy,

Our resources for another person can be a pleasing experience for everyone involved.

If it's done unconditionally and from a place of honesty and integrity we can please people sexually by being attuned to their particular erotic preferences.

We can please people physically by creating or providing delicious nutritious food for them or by learning and kind of meeting people's particular sensory preferences for beauty,

For how things smell,

And how we might interact or care for their body through hugging or massage or warm and kind touch.

I love to have positive interactions with people and to make them feel good,

Even strangers.

If I see someone who looks particularly great in what they're wearing in the coffee shop I try to tell them,

You're rocking that dress today,

Your hair looks amazing,

Or you have a fabulous voice.

I was in a smoothie shop the other day with my teens and the woman at the counter had this amazing Jamaican accent,

Like a vat of sweet warm cream,

Not just the accent but even where the language comes from is like deep in her chest.

I talk out my nose.

I kind of gushed on her about her amazing voice and she called her husband over and we had a really nice exchange about beautiful accents.

And the couple,

Good at customer service,

Said some pleasing things to me as well.

The husband called me lovely lady and we shared a very pleasant or pleasing exchange.

I left smiling and they were smiling when I walked out.

So the desire to please others is a way to share and exchange positive energy.

But for a lot of people,

Myself included,

People pleasing has a dark side and maybe we call the healthy constructive aspects of it pleasing people,

Which generally has no other motive than spreading goodwill,

And people pleasing is the subtle or not so subtle shadow side of making nice.

People pleasing is doing or saying things that we think other people want to hear that are actually not connected with what's true for us.

And rather than being rooted in true love,

Generosity,

And openness,

People pleasing is rooted in fear,

Lack,

Limitation,

And unworthiness.

When I do or say things to bring pleasure to others from that vulnerable unattached place,

Everyone leaves feeling good.

When I'm in people pleasing,

If I'm self-aware about it,

It usually breeds resentment and even some level of insecurity.

Early in my life I was a natural people pleaser.

There was no introspection or room for honest feedback in my family and I learned early that if I told my mother what she wanted to hear,

Then things would be smooth.

And if I told the truth,

Particularly if it was difficult or uncomfortable,

There would be big problems.

And so the message was if I give people what they want from me,

Then I will be cared for.

And anything about myself that makes other people uncomfortable,

Well you better just put that shit away because people don't want to hear it.

And they'll reject you and they'll shame you and they'll tell you you're bad or crazy.

Now that's not my experience today,

But that was what I internalized as a kid.

And people pleasing is certainly reinforced throughout our culture.

Throughout early life,

Children are rewarded for being compliant,

For doing what mommy and daddy want,

For figuring out what the teacher wants from them,

And if we give the teacher what we want,

We get an A.

And the same happens in sports,

In churches,

In social and peer groups.

Now being able to adapt to the many different dynamics and kind of mini cultures,

Any group of people could be seen as a little culture,

Is a life skill that we need to develop as humans.

Being able to get along with others often requires us to adapt and modify our own wants,

Needs,

And desires to kind of fit in with the larger system so that everything can flow smoothly.

The old idea of when in Rome,

Do as the Romans do,

And it could be understood as a basic human need to be part of a tribe,

A group,

A family,

Or a community.

But when that comes at the expense of our own authentic self,

We need to cut off or disown aspects of who we really are or our own deepest truth,

And that's when it becomes destructive and pathological.

Because our work here is to be our self.

We are individual units of consciousness in a larger consciousness system,

And our work,

What we offer and bring to any situation optimally,

Is our truth.

Now how we bring that truth and when we bring that truth in an effective,

Helpful way is a skill set most of us need a lot of work with.

But when we lie or withhold the truth,

Even emotionally,

Or pretend we're something that we're not,

Then we're usually manipulating and controlling from a place of self-centered fear,

Which is subtly destructive rather than bringing who we really are,

Which is always constructive.

There's a principle I stand on which is the highest good for one is the highest good for everyone involved.

And the highest good is not always comfortable in the short run,

But the highest good is generally better in the long run.

So my first relationship was long and intense for my age.

I dated this guy from the age of 14 to 20,

And there was a lot happening for me during that period.

Really struggling with addiction,

Serious eating disorder,

Depression,

And generally being a fucking train wreck in almost every area of my life.

I became super isolated and over time gave up most of my friendships and it was just me and my boyfriend.

And he stayed with me through a lot of really dark times and did a lot to try to please me.

And I felt like I owed him for that.

Probably the most codependent relationship I've ever had.

Well,

There's a couple top contenders for the Codependency Award in my life,

But that's another podcast.

But although I stayed with him for six years,

It would have been much more honest and healthy for me to break up with him about year two.

But he was emotionally dependent on me and our families and the friends that I had peripherally all expected us to get married.

And I was so disconnected from my own feelings,

From what was true for me,

And I didn't know that how I felt was important and valid.

And so I just did what I thought was the right thing,

Which was to try to make him happy.

And so I acted like a good girlfriend.

I went into a deep depression because I was withholding all of my own emotional truth and rejecting it.

And although it all looked good on the outside,

I actually came to resent and maybe even hate him.

Secretly,

Of course,

But it was a pretty toxic secret.

I tried to break up with him once and he lost like 20 pounds and begged me to stay with him,

Which was pretty good for my ego but terrible for my emotions and my spirit.

And so I stayed with him because it was good for him,

Because I didn't think I had a good enough reason to leave if it was gonna make him feel bad,

And because I had fear that if I left him maybe no one else would want me.

And somewhere in there I discovered masturbation and I stopped having sex with him.

We had actually had a pretty good sex life,

But the level of negativity and resentment that built and built from my emotional dishonesty and actually abandoning myself killed my desire to open to him in any way.

And when he would ask me what was wrong I would just say,

I don't feel good.

And that was true.

I didn't feel good.

It's not unusual how things manifest if we don't deal with them directly.

And spiritual and emotional issues will absolutely come out as physical ailments if we don't have the courage,

The resources,

Or the awareness to be honest.

Recently I've been working with a young man whose parents are divorced and he goes one week at his mother's house,

One week at his father's house,

And that has worked pretty well for him.

He just turned 18 and graduated from high school and we began to talk about how long he was going to continue to act as a dependent child going back and forth between the parents' houses.

He actually prefers to live at his father's house,

But he was afraid to tell his mother because he didn't want to hurt her feelings.

We had a lot of talk about including what he wanted and he came up with a whole list of physical practical reasons why it would be better if he was going to talk to her about why he should live with his father,

More opportunities to be closer to work.

Dad's a better cook.

He gets to spend more time with the pets that he likes.

But I told him his feelings were reason enough that he could just say,

This doesn't work for me anymore or I would prefer to change the setup in a way that works more for me.

That was a revelation for him because up until this point in his life,

His own wants and preferences,

How he felt about stuff has not been included in the conversation.

And his parents are good people,

But he's become so adept at being compliant,

He really hasn't developed his own awareness of what he wants.

And he said to me,

Wow,

So if I want to be happy in life and the choices that I make create my reality,

If I make those choices based on what other people want,

It might make other people happy.

But if I want to be happy,

I actually have to know how I feel so I can make choices based on myself.

Otherwise I'm never going to be happy.

I'll just make other people happy.

And that's the essence of people pleasing,

That it separates us from our own authentic self.

And it's often rooted in the belief that who we really are is unlovable,

Unacceptable,

Or not good enough.

And that the only way we'll get our needs met is by trying to be what other people want.

And this is a terrible,

Tragic lie and it creates tremendous suffering and dysfunction,

Both within our self,

In our relationships,

And in our family and community structures.

And it reinforces the fear that we are unlovable because if we don't actually reveal our authentic self,

As quirky and funky as it might be,

Then that authentic self can never be loved.

And we create a mask,

A socially acceptable version of ourself that we share with other people or show to them,

And that's what they respond to.

And we know deep in our hearts that the part of us they think they love is a fake.

Now the fear is if they really knew me,

They wouldn't love me.

But I'm reinforcing that terrible idea within myself because I'm rejecting my own truth and I expect others to do the same.

And as difficult as it is to tell the truth emotionally,

Physically,

Sexually,

Professionally,

Familiarly,

We are all connected.

And the highest good for me is the highest good for everyone involved.

And the truth for me calls everyone to a highest truth because we all share on a deep level.

Now again,

How we tell the truth,

When we tell the truth,

That's a skill set.

And I often need to do a lot of back-end work to be able to show up in an authentic way that's productive and helpful.

But how other people feel about my truth is actually not my business.

My job is to take care of my side of the street and to share that with others and to allow them to have their own authentic experience with it.

Now in relationship that often requires the other person to change and they can either grow with me in greater honesty,

Integrity,

And authenticity.

They might act out in shame and blame me for their feelings.

That's what my mother did,

Which was her dysfunction.

And we did stop that pattern by the end of her life,

I will say,

Thank God.

But it also might call for the relationship to end.

But when I show up and tell the truth,

I am actually fully participating in the unfolding evolution and mystery of life.

And when I withhold my truth to control and manipulate,

I'm giving myself a death message on a soul level.

Now that might sound dramatic,

But having been suicidal more than once because I felt hopeless,

The life force has only returned to me by discovering what was actually true within myself and bringing it out and letting it create positive change in my life.

And my truth is I like to please people and I like it when people please me.

But to the best of my ability,

I don't people please anymore.

I did a podcast on emotional honesty,

Number 12,

If you're interested in diving a little deeper into that.

And I encourage you to consider where you might be people pleasing in your life,

If it actually serves you,

And what would you need to do or change to be more authentic in those areas or relationships.

Thank you so much for listening.

Blessings on your path until we meet again.

This is Renee LaValley McKenna for Spiritual Psychology.

Reviews

I appreciate how you incorporate your own experience into your talks. This was people-pleasing explained with awareness and nuance, and I’m sharing with my people. Thank you ❤️

This was such a helpful talk. I can't thank you enough for sharing. 🙏

You have a gift of flushing out the most out of words! At a quick glance people pleasing & pleasing people seem similar but the outcomes are so different. Thank you Renee 💜

Fabulous. Thank you for everything you have shared and given guidance on.

Thank you Renee. That was a great full informative talk. Will relisten. 🙏

This was exactly what I needed at this moment, so thank you for this session 💙🙏

I deeply understand people pleasing and thank you for explaining how destructive and dishonest it can be for everyone involved 🙏🏽

Great thank you so much for the meditation