Welcome to Life Unedited Sanctuary,
Where reality happens.
I'm Tiffany,
A reality therapist of 21 years,
And a gal who walks my talk.
The beauty of sharing reality therapy looks at different life experiences is that I get to reinforce my practices right along with you,
Gentle listener.
My personal pledge is to share information that I genuinely practice myself.
The reality theories I share are born of personal experience as well as the experiences of hundreds of clients in my private practice.
This is a reality therapy interpretation of people pleasing.
Can't say no.
Fear of disappointing,
And losing ourselves in others.
Reality therapy and radical acceptance theories assert that people-pleasing is a passive,
Learned form of manipulation.
First,
It's important to define manipulation.
And for this,
I credit Google.
Quote,
Manipulation means influencing someone or something,
End quote.
Often when we hear or use the word,
We interpret it in a negative manner.
It implies sneaky or dishonest.
The way I'm using it here is in a neutral way,
Very specific to influencing.
A subtle form of manipulation is when we present information to another person in a way with the hope of shaping,
Steering,
Or influencing their response to get what we want out of the conversation.
We see this in advertising,
And it happens in real life too.
We learn to people please early in life because we are taught that receiving what we want or need is conditional.
If we behaved,
Then we could go out inside and play.
If we misbehaved,
Then we would have to sit in a timeout.
If we want attention,
Then we can do something positive or negative to receive that attention.
Those are examples of people-pleasing,
Manipulating people or situations to influence an outcome.
The inability to say no to something or someone is a common form of people pleasing to influence an outcome.
The desired outcome might be how people perceive us.
We are nice or can always be counted on because we never say no.
This,
However,
Is an example of us compromising ourselves by saying yes when we want to say no.
We are putting other people before ourselves.
Putting others first has mistakenly been thought of as being selfless,
And on the flip side,
Putting ourselves first is selfish.
This couldn't be further from the truth.
Pouring into other people's cups at the expense of our own leaves us empty,
Unfulfilled,
And resentful.
To be frank,
Saying yes when we want to say no is not being honest with either ourselves or the person to whom we are saying yes.
I wonder how that person would feel if they knew that I wanted to decline and didn't because I felt like I might disappoint them,
Or worse,
Felt obligated to accept.
The fear of saying no often goes hand in hand with our fear of disappointing people.
Let me say this clearly.
We don't disappoint people.
People choose to be disappointed.
And that disappointment is with themselves,
Which can be projected in our direction because it is too uncomfortable for them to hold it personally.
This is a good place to review the reality theory that all communication is a projection of the speaker and not a reflection of the listener.
In reference to the fear of disappointment,
We project our fear onto the person we are afraid of disappointing.
When we sit with it,
The person we are disappointing is us.
And we do so by not responding with our truth.
This breaches our ability to trust ourselves.
When we respond genuinely,
Authentically,
And honestly,
We pour into our own cup and do not disappoint ourselves because we are being true to ourselves.
This is not selfish.
Interestingly,
We would tell a friend to be true to themselves,
Yet we don't hold the same space for ourselves.
Losing ourselves in others from a space of reality is directly related to our unconscious ego belief that we are not good enough as we are.
This belief was cultivated very early in our lives,
And we may not even know when,
How,
Or why.
Components of not good enough include lacking in self-confidence,
Self-worth,
And self-trust.
Our not good enough belief encourages us to lose ourselves in people because we think that's how we maintain or keep relationships,
And reinforces our fear that if we were ourselves,
Then the person would not accept us,
Possibly jeopardizing the relationship.
This is,
Again,
A manipulative tactic to try to influence and keep relationships in our lives that we might be better off letting go.
People-pleasing overall is a learned behavior to get our needs met.
We can unlearn or cultivate new behaviors.
This begins with the practice of self-acceptance.
It doesn't happen overnight.
Just like the people-pleasing behaviors we learned were reinforced over time.
Self-acceptance can start with listening to our bodily reactions when asked to do something.
If our initial feeling is no,
Then honor that feeling and respond accordingly.
No is a complete sentence and it is not mean.
We can also say,
No thank you.
Or maybe another time.
It is a practice of not allowing ourselves to override the initial feeling of no by writing a story about why we should say yes.
Reminder that whenever we find ourselves shooting something,
We are arguing with the reality that we really want to say no.
As we develop our self-perception skills,
Our self-trust and confidence grow.
We can count on us to be true to ourselves.
We are responsible for ourselves and our feelings.
And with that,
We accept that other people are responsible for themselves and their feelings.
We learn that we do not disappoint people.
They choose to be disappointed.
And it is not about us.
Self-acceptance lays a foundation of I am good enough,
Which supports our autonomy as a worthwhile person,
Friend,
Partner,
Or family member.
Not only am I good enough,
I trust myself and have confidence in myself.
This allows me to show up as myself in my relationships by sharing my authenticity with people around me.
I also project that good enough authentic energy into my relationships,
Which reinforces the genuine connections we hold dearly.
