How does people pleasing differ from being a kind, generous person?
People pleasers usually go against their own will and participate in activities they don’t really feel like doing. Kindness and generosity causes positive emotion and is engaging, motivating. On the other hand, people pleasing is a choir and cause negative emotion. People pleasers usually try avoid negative emotions that could come as result of acting “selfish”. They try to avoid disagreements, conflicts in their relationships. They may try to avoid fear of being judged or rejected. It’s more convenient to go with the flow than to feel anxiety, guilt or shame.
Are people pleasers born or made?
It’s a combination of biological and environmental factors that you have to consider.
Made people pleasers
Made people pleasers grew up in famalies where one of the parents exhorted tyrannical type of control. Usually these people didn’t have a safe space where they could have a personal freedom of choice. A lot of the time they were pressured into doing things against their own will.
Children from tyrannical households learn that their needs aren’t important and they have no freedom of choice. Next time John will not even bring this problem up and just go to school sick. He may develop the belief that his opinion has no weight and that mother will refuse his request anyway.
Some parents even go to the extremes and make their children feel guilty of their choice or become angry, violent.
Client once told me when she was a adolescent her mother didn’t like that she spent time outside of the house. She would bombard her with angry text messages, phone calls asking when she will come home. This caused a lot of anxiety and distress to the client.
She learned to comply with mothers requests and abandon her own needs in order to avoid conflict, misstreatment afterwards. Made people pleasers naturally learn that they have to cater to other peoples needs and if they exercise their own freedom of choice they will be met with force.
Born people pleasers
Born people pleasers have personality traits such as agreeableness and neuroticism. They may be shy and timid in social situations, avoid upsetting others. These traits also go along with mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression.
Agreeableness and people pleasing
Agreeable people are emphatetic, caring towards others. Good will and care towards others becomes a trap for people pleasing. Agreeable people pleasers:
- Go with the flow and avoid conflicts in the relationships.
- Prioritise others people needs and abandon their own.
- Have hard time setting healthy boundaries, expressing emotions and needs in relationships.
- Have hard time saying ”No”.
- Believe that healthy relationships only exist if everyone is happy.
- Are about peace and harmony in relationships at all costs.
Neurotism and people pleasing
Neurotic people are susceptible towards stress and negative emotion. People pleasing becomes the way of avoiding stress and negative emotion. Neurotic people pleasers:
- Avoid negative reactions from others that come with saying ,,No”.
- Fear that others might judge them, say mean things about them if they follow their best interests.
- Avoid guilt that comes with not being a nice, complian person.
- Avoid making others upset, angry because it makes them feel anxious, guilty.
- Avoid fear of rejection, abandonment that comes from “rejecting” others needs and desires.
People pleasing isn't just the inability to say ,,No'' to others, it's also saying ,,No'' to yourself.
In the next few paragraphs I will go over a case study where pleasing people are very subtle and disguised in unconsciousness. As always, in the end there will be tips on how you can work on this problem.
One way of pleasing people is not going after what you deserve and is reasonable for you to ask
People who suffer from anxiety or depression have a tendency to shy away from expressing their true feelings and needs.
Generally it can be a consequence of growing up in an environment where parents were too strong of personalities. As a child maybe you didn’t feel safe to express yourself. Especially if your parents didn’t show true care or support when you tried to do so, it can leave scars.
If this situation repeats time and time again, John will learn that there is no point in expressing his needs and feelings because they don’t matter. When children grow up in houses where there isn’t any flexibility and support to their choice they quickly learn to shut themselves off. They learn to swallow their resentment and go with the flow.
As adults when these children are put in situations where they have to stand up for themselves they feel uncomfortable and hesitant to take action. There is always something holding them back. Psychological defenses such as anxiety, guilt and shame dominate a person and healthy way of expressing yourself becomes a way of suffering that should be avoided.
Details of such suffering can go to life situations as simple as crossing the street on crosswalk. Person might start to become hesitant, uncomfortable crossing the street if a car has to stop because of him.
Mind can really play tricks on a people pleasing person
Mind can really play tricks on people pleasing person. Person might start to believe that if a car has to stop he is wasting the driver’s time. Also, a person can experience fantasies that the driver will be angry if he has to stop.
In situations where people pleaser have to cross the road he might experience intense anxiety or urgency to cross the road as fast as possible so drivers don’t get impatient or mad. It also can become dangerous. People pleaser might start crossing the road where it’s inappropriate in order to avoid anxiety that comes with crosswalking and stopping cars.
Problem here is that a people pleaser isn’t concerned about his own needs but is solely focused on catering to others. Fantasies and images of angry car drivers, that appear in people pleasers head, are part of psychological injury that was sustained in the past. They poorly represent actual reality and create unnecessary suffering.
People pleasing is symptom of unresolved psychological injury
For most part, car drivers aren’t angry if they have to stop at crosswalk. Human mind is so tricky that it plays out psychological injuries in most unordinary ways. In people pleasers mind car drivers may represent a angry parent that showed frustration, was controlling when people pleaser, as a child, tried to express his emotions or needs but was rejected or neglected.
Right now, car drivers are just images that represent an authoritative parent figure that was angry, punishing or neglecting. People pleasers mind uses these images to play out psychological conflict. These pictures are a reflection of how people pleaser experiences his reality through the lens of a helpless child.
Additionally if people pleaser is not actively participating in the psychotherapy process, either through self-journaling or going to therapy, these psychic conflicts remain “unconscious”. Generally they might not be self-evident of being directly related to simple problems such as crosswalking the road.
At present people pleaser might have thoughts of not crossing the road or worrying about upsetting the driver, but connecting dots and acknowledging that these thoughts are part of inner conflict is quite challenging. So how can you break out of this cycle?
How to stop people pleasing?
1. Become aware of thoughts and behaviors that are present when you are in a situation.
Are you trying to avoid crossing the road on crosswalk and cross it anywhere else? Do you wait for cars to disappear and then feel comfortable using crosswalk? These behaviors happen automatically and your job is to identify the fact that you are actively participating, reinforcing them.
Admit to yourself that you are avoiding situations where you have to crosswalk the road. You’re desperately trying to avoid negative emotions that are associated with that event. Just acknowledge and say: ,,Okay, I am trying actively to avoid this situation. I do this and that instead of using a crosswalk.”
2. Recognize thoughts and feelings that stop you
Maybe you believe that stopping cars at crosswalks is wasting car drivers’ time and you feel guilty because of it. Or you feel anxiety that the driver has to stop only because of you and he might get angry.
Start to recognize the voices in your head that question your actions and are doubtful of how others might respond. Even when you take the right choice for yourself you will hear voices back in your mind. They might say: ,,How about others, how will they perceive you after you acted so selfish? What if they get angry or criticize you? What if they turn on you or reject?”
Voices can get loud and you may become fearful of taking action. People pleasing often results in over-analyzing every aspect of the situation. You may question why your actions are right or wrong. Think about what others might think of you or experience emotions like guilt, shame, anxiety for not being the “perfect” civilian, friend, colleague.
Worst thing you can do is give in to these voices and feel beaten down by them.
3. Learn to take necessary action no matter what
In this case you are going to crosswalk if the car has to stop or not. This will be the hardest part. You will have to fight off negative voices in your head. Your job is to create a safe space between your own best interests and critical voice, perception of how others might feel about you. Best way I can describe this process is slight ignorance.
You may feel anxious, hesitant of taking action and that’s completely fine. Try to keep your mind straight and do not give in to your doubts, negative thoughts that are trying to stop you from taking action. Promise yourself that you will do it in spite of feeling uncomfortable, anxious.
Sometimes you have to do it even if you don’t feel like doing it. Remember that you will get better every time you try. Negative voice will fall little by little and your confidence will grow. Another thing that is important, remind yourself that you will do it for yourself even if sometimes there are negative reactions, consequences that may discourage you from doing it all over again.