Mental Health: The “Other” Side of People Pleasing
Happy New Year, everyone!
Have you ever met somebody who is a ”people pleaser?” Or has somebody even pointed out to you that you are a people pleaser?
As part of my counseling practice I often end up talking to clients who are some variety of people pleasers. That is to say, they are more concerned with making other people happy than they are with getting any of their own wants or needs met.
Of course there's nothing wrong with wanting good things for other people, but it can become a problem when you start ignoring yourself.
One of the things I often encounter with people who are identifiable as people pleasers is that they end up in fairly toxic relationships. Most people tend to end up in relationships with complementary personalities.
For the people pleasers that means they often end up with somebody who is almost impossible to please, while that somebody is drawn to the kinds of people who will always put their needs first. In other words, the "users" of life.
There are always some fundamental questions that need to be answered:
For starters, I ask the people pleaser why they think it is that they're always taking their cues for what to do next from other people rather than from what they know to be important to themselves, inside themselves.
In many cases, it turns out that they had difficult childhoods often growing up with hypercritical parents who would find fault with almost everything they did. When they choose a lover, friend or partner who is extremely difficult to please they are merely repeating a pattern they were familiar with when growing up... even if it doesn't suit them.
Although "being of service" to other people can be a good and noble thing there are also good reasons to break out of this habit, when it seems to dominate your life.
For starters it can be very difficult to form a healthy relationship because a healthy person encountering a people pleaser will often find them rather clingy and invasive and probably avoid a relationship on the ground that they have no opinions of their own.
Of course that works in the opposite direction as well in that a people pleaser will often feel ”useless” in the company of somebody who doesn't actually need a bunch of help.
They don't know how to choose a healthy partner.
No matter how you turn it, people pleasers tend to suppress themselves, and that is not psychologically healthy!
If some of what you have read here "feels familiar," you might do well to learn more about the people pleasing paradigm, and how it influences your life. We all deserve to live and happy and whole individuals!
I appreciate you coming to visit, and Bright Blessings to all!
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